Chapter 20

It was dusk, and the lights of the Rathskeller began to twinkle out one by one. The Keller was long and rambling, divided into innumerable small alcoves and corners, partitioned by strange and antique carvings.

The ceiling was low, with octagonal vaults like a cloister. On the smoke-grimed walls, here and there, were mural paintings of knights in armour, and fat peasants drinking, dimmed and half obliterated. Beneath were legends and proverbs, printed in quaint, old-German characters; while across one end, like a frieze, ran a ledge carven with gargoyles, rude and misshapen. On the ledge were beer mugs of every size and description, with queer tops and crooked handles. Above, suspended from the ceiling by chains, hung a huge Fass; and from the throats of the gargoyles, dragon and devil alike, dripped the beer, turned on by small taps hidden.

In and out, among the tables, sped the waitresses in their Tyrolese costume with its picturesque head-dress; and beyond lay the garden, innumerable bulbs of light gleaming like fire-flies among the trees.

"Bitte um zwei Münchener!"

"Sogleich, meine Herren."

"Ein Chartreuse und ein Pilsener!"

"Jawohl! Sofort!"

And the waitresses sped, vying with one another, coquetting with their patrons, smiling gayly with sharp retorts; their eyes bright, their trays laden with foaming beer mugs.

In one of the alcoves, far back in the shadow, sat two gentlemen. The younger had removed his hat, and was pushing the hair impatiently back from his brows. His eyes were dark and sleepy, half covered by the brows, weighed down by the lids.

He was leaning on one elbow and responded languidly to his companion, half heeding, toying with his hands, and strumming on the table with his fingers, which were white, and supple, and full of magnetism.

Beside him lay a violin.

"You are nervous to-night, Velasco?"

"I am always nervous."

"What shall we eat and drink?"

"Donnerwetter--what you please! If I eat, I cannot play. Bring me some of that Rhine wine, Fräulein, the white in the slanting bottles, and a plate of Pretzeln. No beer--bewahre!"

The Musician raised his hands with a shrug of his shoulders, and then sank back in his former listless attitude.

"That is your Polish taste, Velasco. Try a bit of Schinken with me, or a Stückchen of Cervelat with cheese--eh? If you eat, you will be less nervous, and your fingers will become warm. When you play, you are abstinent as a priest before the mass."

The older man smoothed his beard, which was fast turning grey, and lifted the beer mug to his lips.

"Ich danke!" said Velasco with irony: "My dear Kapellmeister, I am not as those who would serve Art with a bottle of champagne under each arm. I want no fumes in my brain and no clod between my fingers when I meet the Muse face to face."

"You are right there," said Ritter thoughtfully, lowering his glass: "It is like a pearl coming out of the throat of a swine to hear the tones from Bauermann's fingers, when he can scarce keep himself at the pianoforte, and his head rocks between his shoulders like a top falling. His sense of beauty is all that is left of him, and that seems over ripe, like a fruit left too long in the sun. Materialism is the artist's curse. Their heads are in the clouds and their feet are in the slough.--Pah!"

The Kapellmeister tapped his glass sharply with the edge of his knife, and called without turning: "Hey--a Münchener, Fräulein!"

He scanned the face of his companion curiously. The Violinist seemed to be dreaming; he held the Rhine wine in his hand, gazing down into its liquid gold as if a vision lay at the bottom of the glass.

"Velasco!"

The Musician half raised his lids and then lowered them again.

"Are you asleep, Velasco?"

"Potztausend--no! I hear what you say! You speak of musicians and swine in the same breath. It is true. You ought to know, who wave the baton over them year in and year out. They rise like a balloon and then they fall--!"

He dropped his hands on the table with an expressive gesture. "They give out through the senses; they take in the same way." He lifted the glass, staring into it again: "But it is not through pleasure, not pleasure, Ritter, never pleasure, that their senses are developed, and they learn to feel, and give back what they have felt. They think it is pleasure, and they fall into the error, and their art dies within them sooner or later. It is like some fell thing clutching at their feet, and when they try to rise, it seizes them and drags them back, and they sink finally--they sink!"

The Kapellmeister leaned forward on the table, scanning the young face opposite him: "A year ago, Velasco, your chin was round and full; from the look of your mouth one could tell that you had lived and enjoyed. You were like the Faun, happy and careless, and your art was to you like a plaything. You cared only for your Stradivarius, and when you were not playing, you were nothing, not even a man. All your genius was concentrated there in your brows where the music lies hidden. Your virility was in your tones, and your strength in your fingers. What has come over you?"

"Am I changed?" said Velasco. His throat contracted. He held the glass to his lips, but he did not drink.

The Kapellmeister gazed at him strangely: "Yes, you are changed. In one year you have grown ten. What it is I cannot tell, but the look of your face is different. The mouth has grown rugged and harsh; there are lines under your eyes, and your lips are firm, not full. It is as if a storm had burst on a young birch, and torn it from its bank amid the grass and the heather, and an oak had grown up in its place, brought into life by the wind and the gale."

Velasco tossed off the Moselle and laughed bitterly: "I have done with pleasure," he said, "I have lived and I know life; that is all. There is nothing in it but work and music."

"Tell me, Velasco," said the Kapellmeister slowly, "Don't be offended if I ask, or think that I am trying to pry into your affairs. When you were rehearsing this morning it occurred to me.--There was something new in the quality of your tone. Before, you were a virtuoso; your technique was something to gaze at and harken to, and there was no technique like it in Europe; now--"

"Well--now?" cried Velasco, "Was I clumsy this morning? Was anything the matter? Potztausend!--why didn't you tell me?"

His eyes gleamed suddenly under his brows and he twirled his fingers, toying with them nervously. "Gott--Kapellmeister! Why didn't you tell me at once?"

"Now--" said the Kapellmeister: He looked up at the Bierfass, hanging by its chains, and his gaze wandered slowly over the legends on the wall, the gargoyles dripping; the mugs with their quaint tops and their handles twisted, the roof in its octagonal vaults, smoky, begrimed; and then back again to the table, and the flask before Velasco, yellow and slanting.

"Now--" he said, "you are no longer a virtuoso, you are an artist, and that, as you know, is something infinitely greater and higher and more difficult of attainment. All the great violins of my time I have heard; most of them I have conducted."

Ritter's voice lowered suddenly to a whisper, and he leaned forward, touching the other's hand with his own: "I tell you, Velasco, and I know what I say--you played to-day at rehearsal as none of them played, not even Sarasati, king of virtuosi; or Joachim, prince of artists. You played as if the violin were yourself, and your bow were tearing your own heart strings. . . . Don't move! Don't get up! What is it, Velasco? You are white as death and your eyes are staring! Listen to my question and answer it, or not, as you please. This is not an age of miracles. The birch was not torn from the bank without reason, or the oak transplanted. Tell me--have you ever loved a woman?"

There was a sudden silence in the Rathskeller. It was almost deserted, and the waitresses were all in the garden, running forward and backward under the trees. From outside came the sound of voices and glasses clinking; and close by, from the ledge, the slow trickle of the beer through the throats of the gargoyles.

"Look at them!" said Velasco dreamily: "It is the Pilsener that runs through the dragons' mouths, and the Münchener through the devils'; a bizarre fancy that!"

He stooped and struck a match against the table edge, lighting his cigarette. "These are Russian, Kapellmeister, extra brand! Try one! I prefer them to Turkish myself." He leaned his head against the carvings of the partition, and drew the smoke in through his nostrils slowly, his eyes half closed.

"It is a quarter to eight now," said Ritter, "but there is plenty of time.--I shouldn't have asked that question perhaps, Velasco. Forgive me. My own affairs have turned my thoughts too much on that subject."

"Was it several years ago?" said Velasco, "I don't remember." He passed his hand over his forehead several times as if chafing his memory.

Ritter pushed away his plate, and leaned forward with his head on his hands, staring down at the table, and tracing out the pattern of the wood with his fingers.

"Fourteen years to-night, Velasco. I have never spoken of it to any one; but somehow to-night it would be a relief to talk. Brondi was staying at my house; he was the Tristan. One night he gave out he was ill, and some one else took the part. When I returned from the opera, he was gone and she was gone, and the house was dark and deserted."

Ritter was silent for a moment.

"Fourteen years to-night, Velasco, and I feel as if it were yesterday."

The Violinist shaded his eyes from the light as if it hurt him: "When you came back," he said, "When you found out--what was it you felt, love or hate?"

The Kapellmeister made a swift, repelling gesture as if some reptile had touched him: "Love!" he cried, "Hate! Velasco--man, there is many a sin at my door; I am far from a saint heaven knows; but to deceive one who has trusted--to desert one who has loved and been loyal! God! There is no worse crime than that, or more despicable! Can one love, or hate, where there is only contempt?"

He clenched his fist, and his eyes were like two sword points boring into the face opposite.

"Contempt--" he said, "It has eaten into my heart like a poisonous drug and killed all else. There is nothing left."

The Kapellmeister took a long breath, then he continued hoarsely: "But I am a man; with a woman it is different. Her heart is young and she knows nothing of the world. It is like a stab in the dark from a hand she loves, and her heart is torn. If she is brave, facing the world with a smile on her lips, she bleeds inwardly. She is like a swan, swooping in circles lower and lower, with a song in her throat, until the great wings droop, and the eyes grow dim, and she falls finally, and the song is stilled. But the last beat of her heart and the last echo of her voice is for him--for him who fired the shot in her breast!"

He half rose in his seat with his hands trembling, and then sank back again.

"Have you ever loved a woman and left her, Velasco? Tell me--have you a deed like that on your conscience?"

"I--?" The Musician laughed aloud and took his hand from his face: "You are talking in riddles, Kapellmeister! The beer has gone to your head, and you are drunk! Look at the clock over yonder!-- What is love? A will-o'-the-wisp! You chase it and it eludes you; you clasp it and it melts into air! There is nothing in life, I tell you, but music and work."

He poured out another glass of the wine: "Here's to your health, Kapellmeister! Prosit--my friend! Put those grim thoughts from your mind, and women from your heart. We must be off."

He was quaffing the liquor at a gulp.

"Prosit, Kapellmeister!"

Ritter made no answer. He sat staring moodily down at the table. "You are young, Velasco, to be bitter. Is it music, or work, that has carven those lines in your face?"

There was a sting in his voice.

The Violinist threw back his head like a horse at the touch of the spur. His eyes blazed defiantly at the Kapellmeister for a moment, and then the light went out of them as flame from a coal. The glass fell from his hand and lay shattered in fragments on the floor. He stood looking down at them wearily:

"That is my life," he said, "It is broken like the glass; and the wine is my love. There is nothing left of it but a stain. It has gone from me and is dead. Come!"

He lifted his violin, and the two men took their hats and went out, side by side, silently, without speaking.

The room was empty. Slowly from the throats of the gargoyles trickled the beer; and the Fass was like a great shadow hung from the ceiling by its chains. From outside came the clamour of voices and laughter, and the waitresses sped to and fro. The lights twinkled gayly under the spreading of the leaves, and the glasses clinked.