Part 6

"Ah, Tina," said the old man, "you are very good, but you mistake. I am not the great master you suppose. I know it too well. There is always something wanting in my notes. When you sing them, well and good. Even as they are they never would have been scored but for you. When I leave you the glamour will be taken out of them. They will be cold and dead: no one will think anything of them any more."

"If this be true," said the girl, almost fiercely, "it is all the more reason why I will never leave you! You have made me, as the Prince said; I am yours for life. Wherever you go I will go; whatever you write I will sing. If we fail, we fail together. If we succeed, the success is yours."

She paused for a moment, and then, with a deeper flush and a tender confidence which seemed inspired:

"And we shall succeed! I have not yet sung my best. I, too, know it. You have not yet made me all you may. Whatever you teach me I will sing!"

The old man looked at her, as well he might, deeply moved, but he shook his head.

"Tina," he said, "I will not have it. You must not be ruined for me. You must not go. Other masters, greater than I, will finish what it is my happiness to have begun. The world will ring with your name. Art will be enriched with your glorious singing. I shall hear of it before I die. The old Maestro will say, 'Ah, that is the girl whom I taught.'"

The girl was standing now quite calm, all trace of emotion even had past away. She looked at him with a serene smile that was sublime in its rest. It was not worth while even to say a word.

* * * * *

The decision of the Maestro and the Signorina filled the princely household with distress. Tina had been, at Joyeuse, the light and joy of a joyful place; and, although the household saw much less of her at Vienna, yet the charm of her presence and of her triumphs was still their own. The Prince heard the news with absolute dismay. It was not only that he had begun to love the girl, he conceived that she belonged to him of right. The Maestro was his; he had assisted, maintained, and patronised him; by his encouragement and in his service he had discovered the girl and trained her in music. They were both part of his scheme, of his art of life. It was bad, doubtless, that, when he had attempted still higher flights, when he had wished to bring, and, as he had once thought, succeeded in bringing, religion, faith, and piety, with all their delicate loveliness, to grace the abundance of his life's feast--it was bad, doubtless, that, at the moment of success, a terrible catastrophe should have cruelly broken this lovely plaything, and left him with a haunting conscience as of well-nigh a deliberate murderer. All this was bad, but now he seemed about to fail, not only in these original and high efforts, which perhaps had never been attempted before, but in the simplest schemes of art; and to fail, to be foiled by the perversity of a girl! He had great influence in Vienna; he doubted not but that he could soon overcome the opposition of interested rivals, or, if not exactly this, there were other masters besides this one, there was other music for the Signorina to sing. He believed with him that her future would be brilliant, and he considered himself the rightful possessor of her triumph and of her charm. He imperiously ordered the Maestro to remain.

The old man begged to be excused.

He was old and broken down, he said; he had taught the Signorina all he knew. Henceforward he must pass her on to abler teachers. It was no wish of his that she should accompany him, he had urged her to remain.

In truth, as was not wonderful, his whole heart was in this last music of his; as a matter of selfish pride and enjoyment even, apart from his narrow, though to some extent real, conceptions of art, he must hear it again performed in a great theatre, and that soon.

The vexation of the Prince became excessive. He lost his habitual ease and serenity of tone. He sent for Carricchio.

The Princess Isoline was with him.

"Let the girl go, Ferdinand," she was saying. "Let her go for a time. She will improve by travel, and by singing in other cities. She is of a grateful and affectionate nature; be sure that she will never forget you: she will return when you send for her."

Then, as Carricchio was announced, the Princess rose and left the room.

"Carricchio," said the Prince impetuously, "you must stop this nonsense of the Banti's leaving Vienna. If the Maestro chooses to stay, well and good. If he chooses to go, also good. He will be a stupid old fool! But it is his own business. I have nothing to do with it; but Tina shall not go. She belongs to me. I will not have it. You have influence with her, and must stop it."

"Highness," said Carricchio, "she will not go for long. The Maestro is old and broken; he will be helpless among strangers, hostile or indifferent. She will be friendless; she will be glad to come back;" and there passed over Carricchio's face an unconscious habitual grimace.

"I tell you," said the Prince, "she shall not go at all. She belongs to me: voice and body and soul, she belongs to me."

He was flushed with excitement. In spite of the habitual dignity of manner and of gesture which he could not wholly lose, his appearance, as he stood in the centre of the room before Carricchio, was so strange, so different from its usual lofty quiet, that the latter looked at him with surprise, and even apprehension.

"_Mon Prince_," he said at last, "beware! Take the warning of an old man. Let her alone. God warns every man once--sometimes twice--seldom a third time. My Prince, let her alone!"

"What, Carricchio!" said the Prince lightly. "Are you also one of us? Are we all in love with a little singing-girl?"

"My Prince," said Carricchio, "it matters little what an old fool like me loves or does not love. I am a broken old Arlecchino, you a Prince. She will have none of us. She alone of all of us--Prince and Princess and clown alike--has solved the riddle which that boy, whom we killed, was sent to teach us. She alone has made her life an art, for she alone has found that art is capable of sacrifice. She alone of all of us has based her art upon nature and upon love. She is passionately devoted to her master--her father in art and life, for he rescued her from poverty and shame. She will follow him through the world. _Mon Prince_, let her alone."

"To let her go," said the Prince, "would be to spoil everything. Shall I give up a deliberate plan of life, finely conceived and carefully carried out, to gratify the whims of a foolish girl? Why is religion to interfere always with art? Why is sacrifice always to be preached to us? Life is not sacrifice: it is a morbid, monkish idea. Life is success, fruition, enjoyment. Life is an art--religion also should be an art."

"Where there is love," said Carricchio, "there must be sacrifice, and no life is perfect without love. There are only two things capable of sacrifice--nature and love. When art is saturated with nature and elevated by love, it becomes a religion, but religion never becomes an art; for art without nature and without love is partial and selfish, and cannot include the whole of life. You will find, believe me, that if you follow art apart from these two, you have indeed only been following a deception, for it has not only been irreligion, it has been bad art."

"The sphere of religion," said the Prince, "is the present, and its scope the whole of human life. It is, therefore, an art. If art is selfish, so is religion. The most disinterested martyr is selfish, for he is following the dictates of his higher self. I tell you Tina is mine, I want her. She shall not go!"

"You said the same of the boy, Highness," said Carricchio gravely; "yet he went--went a long journey from us all. _Mon Prince_, beware!"

VII.

FAILING with the old Arlecchino, the Prince determined to try his own influence with the girl; but he had no intention of acting in a blundering and inartistic manner. He was too good an artist not to prepare the way. Having failed with Carricchio, he resolved to try the Maestro once more.

He sent for the old man. "Maestro," he said, "I regret exceedingly what has happened. I do not wish to make a disturbance immediately after coming to Court after so long an absence. It would not be well. But we shall soon put things right. Meanwhile, if you like to travel for a few months you can do so. There is no necessity for it that I know of, but it will be an entertainment for you, and you will gather ideas for your music, and, no doubt, fame also. If the Signorina remains here, you shall have letters of credit on Paris or any other city. As you will not be dependent on your music, it probably will be a great success. As the Scripture says, 'To him that hath shall be given.' When you are tired of wandering you can return. But Tina remains here--you understand."

"I have already tried to persuade her, Highness," said the old man.

"Well, you must try again. You shall sup with her to-night, as you are neither of you wanted at the opera. I will order supper for you in _la petite Salle_ beyond the _salon_. When I return at night I shall find everything arranged."

The Prince himself went to the opera. He did not care to be seen, as he was supposed to have received a slight, but he had nothing else to do, and was interested in the performance, which was a new opera by Metastasio. Indeed, he was restless, and wanted diversion of any kind.

He sat well back in his box, across the front of which the delicate lace curtains were partly drawn. Karl the _Jager_, and the valet who attended, had left the box and retired to their own gallery, where they criticised the play and the music with more interest than did their master. The Prince lay back in his chair, watching the piece listlessly through the gauzy screen, and listening half heedlessly to the music--the wonderful music of Pergolesi.

The fairy world of song and harmony, peopled by fantastic and impossible creatures who exist only for the sake of the melodies which give them birth, was not devoid of powerful and pathetic phases of passion and of character; but what made its lesson particularly adapted to the Prince's frame of mind, and gradually aroused his languid interest, was the subordination of passion and character to the nicest art. The deepest sorrow warbled to exquisite airs; passion, despairing and bewildered, flinging itself as an evil thing across the devious paths of Romance, yet never for a second forgetful of the nicest harmony or capable of a jarring note. This ideal musical world--bizarre and rococo as, in some respects, it was--seemed to the Prince in some sort an allegory, or even parody, on the art-life he had set himself to create or to perfect. He thought he saw that even its faults were instinct with, and revealed, the secret of which he was in search. Faultiness and feebleness, folly and littleness, seemed restrained, corrected, transformed, when presented in solemn, noble, and pure melodies. Everything in this parody of life was ruled by art just as, in the so-called reality, he had wished. The lesson was not altogether a noble one. Passion, ennobled by art, lost its fatal, repellent aspect, and became perfect as an artistic whole. Here the poison worked readily in the Prince's mind. To sacrifice the least portion of this art-life to any narrow illiterate scruples was to sin against its perfection, without which the whole structure were worthless. Better, far better, throw the entire scheme to the winds. Imperfect art is worse than none at all. He had already forgotten, if he had ever listened to it, Carricchio's warning against unreal and loveless art.

Moreover, as the play went on, and the fantastic adventures and fortunes of its strange actors gradually won the Prince's attention and attracted his interest, through the gauzy veil of the curtains and the haze of delicious melody, his desire was excited and he longed to play out his own part on a real stage, and with tangible, no longer ideal, delights and success. Why did he sit there gazing at a mere show of life, when life itself, in a form strangely attractive and prepared--life which he himself had in some sort formed and created--awaited him, with parts and scenes, ready for the playing, compared to which all the glamour of the piece before him was a mere dream-shade? Fortune had been kind to him; or rather, he thought, his patient loyalty to art had wrought the usual result. As he had followed his steadfast course, nature, chance, the confusions and spite of men, had all tended to co-operate with him, had each supplied a thread of gold to perfect his brilliant woof of coloured existence. The moment seemed at hand; let him no longer dally with shadows, but play his own part, compared with which the piece before him was poor and tame.

* * * * *

"_La petite Salle_," as the Prince had called it--in which supper had been laid for Tina and the Maestro--was situated at the end of a splendid "_apartement_," which contained the _salon_ and the other reception-rooms of the _Hotel_. It communicated with other rooms and private staircases, and was therefore peculiarly suitable for purposes of retirement. It was decorated, with the picturesque daintiness of the French Court, in panels painted in imitation of Watteau, festooned with silk, embroidered with flowers. One or two cabinets supporting plate, and chairs richly embroidered in vari-coloured silk, completed the furniture. The supper was served on a small round table, with a costly service of china and Venetian glass.

Tina had accepted the invitation with pleasure. She had feared that this evening, when the work of another was being performed at the Imperial Theatre, to the exclusion of his great masterpiece, would have been a time of great depression with the Maestro, and she resolved to endeavour to cheer him. She had dressed herself with the greatest care, and without thought of cost. She had never looked so charming--every day seemed to mature her beauty. The supper was all that could have been expected or wished; nevertheless the Maestro was distrait and even sulky. Tina lavished her bewitching wiles and enchantments upon him in vain.

After the first course or two, which, it must be admitted, were served by the attendants in a somewhat perfunctory manner, the Maestro dismissed the servants, saying that the Signorina and he would prefer waiting upon themselves: dumb waiters, containing wines and other accessories, were placed by the table's side, and the servants left the room.

Still the Maestro seemed ill at ease. Tina, finding that her sallies were received with a morose indifference, relapsed into silence, and sat furtively glancing at her companion, with a pouting, disconsolate air which, it might have been thought, would have been found irresistible even by an ascetic.

At last the Maestro, after several futile attempts, and with an awkward and embarrassed air, began:

"I have been thinking, Signora," he said, "over my future plans, and I have resolved not to try to get my music performed, at present at any rate, in any great city. I am old and want rest. I propose to travel for a few months. It will therefore not be necessary to take you from Vienna."

His manner was so constrained, and his resolution so unexpected, that the girl looked at him with perplexity. It was, of course, impossible for her, in her ignorance, to perceive that what was troubling the Maestro was the difficulty of concealing from himself that he had accepted a bribe to desert his art and his friend.

"Maestro," she said at last, "what can you mean?--you to whom it has been given to achieve such a success? How can you talk of rest? What rest can be more perfect than to listen to your own wonderful music? To see, to feel, the power of your glorious art over others, over yourself?"

The Maestro hesitated and floundered worse than before. He was, as he had said himself, when under the influence of as noble feeling as he was capable of, a bad artist; but he had sufficient of the true instinct to be conscious of his bad work. He was ashamed of himself and of his _faineantise_. He made a bungling business of it all round.

He had, before the Prince had made his offer, begun to regret that in a moment of irritation he had been so precipitate in insisting upon leaving Vienna; but now that an offer of freedom, of a sojourn in Paris, of independent means, was made him, the proposal was too attractive to be declined. He felt, beside, that there was so much truth in the Prince's bitter phrase--when he was independent of his music, he felt certain that his music would be a great success.

"It will be better so, Faustina," he said at last; "you will be happier here. You will have plenty to sing, plenty to teach you. The Prince will be pleased."

She was still looking at him wonderingly, but a smile was slowly growing in her eyes. She judged him by a nature as generous and unselfish as his was paltry and mean.

"You are saying this," she said, "for my sake. You fear that I shall suffer hardship and want. You sacrifice yourself--more than yourself--for me."

This turn in the conversation completed the vexation of the Maestro. When you are doing a particularly mean thing, nothing is more aggravating than to have noble and generous motives imputed to you; and to have a very pretty woman offer herself to you, unreservedly, when motives of paltry selfishness render the offer unacceptable, is enough to provoke any man.

The old man lost his temper completely.

"Faustina," he said, "you are a fool. I have told you already that I intend to travel, without thinking of work or of pay. You must stay here. I shall not want you. You have everything here you can wish. The Prince is your lover. You have a brilliant future before you. Don't let me have any more trouble about you."

Still the girl could not believe that her friend and teacher meant to cast her off. She was looking at him wonderingly and sadly.

"Maestro," she said, "you are not well. You are cross and tired; we will not speak of this any more to-night. This worry has made you ill. To-morrow you will see quite differently. You can never leave your art--and Tina."

This feminine persistency, as it seemed to him--this leaving a discussion open which it was absolutely necessary should be closed that night--was too much for the Maestro.

"I leave Vienna," he said brutally, "the day after to-morrow. I suppose that you will not insist on following me uninvited. If so, I shall know what to do."

This tone and look revealed to the girl, at last, that she was cast off and discarded by the only man for whom she really cared. She threw herself on her knees beside his chair, and caught his hand.

"Maestro," she said passionately, "you will not be so cruel! You will not leave me! What can I do? How can I live, without you? I cannot sing without you. I am your child. You took me out of the gutter; you taught me all I know; you made me all I am. I will do anything you tell me. I will not trouble you. I will not speak even! I care for no one except for you. I know you better, I can care for you, can serve you better, than they all. You will not be so cruel! You will not send me away from you."

The more passionately she spoke, the more rapid and fervent her utterance, the more fretful and irritated did the old man become. He pushed her roughly from him.

"Tina," he said again, "you are a fool. Get up from your knees. I don't want any of this stage-acting here."

He rose himself, and began to wander about the room, muttering and grumbling.

As he pushed her rudely from him, the girl rose and, retreating some steps from the table, gazed at him with a dazed, wondering look, as of one before whose eyes some strange unaccountable thing was happening.

She was standing, in her brilliant beauty and in her delicate and fantastic dress, her hands clasped before her. The jewels on her fingers and on her breast paled before the solemn glow of her wonderful eyes, which were dry, only from the intensity of her thought.

"No," she said at last, as it would seem in answer to some unspoken question. "No. There is nothing strange in this. A woman's heart is easily won. I am not the first, by many, who has found that out, too late."

It might have seemed impossible to one easily stirred, easily wrought upon by a woman's beauty--it would surely have seemed impossible to such a one that any could gaze on a sight like this and harbour a selfish thought; but the old man was perfectly unmoved.

"It is always the way," he said peevishly, "always the way with women; now we shall have a scene--tears--entreaties. I shall be called all manner of hard names for giving sensible advice."

And he turned his back upon the girl, and stood sullenly, gazing apparently upon one of the painted panels of the wall.

For about a minute there was a terrible pause, then the curtains that veiled the _salon_ were drawn forcibly back, and the groom of the chambers, who was a Frenchman, announced suddenly--

"_Monseigneur le Prince._"

VIII.

THE Prince came forward smiling. The Maestro made a gesture of inexpressible relief. He shuffled off toward the still opened curtain, and, turning as he reached it, he bowed to the ground before his patron and his pupil, and disappeared through the opening as the servant let the curtain drop. We shall not care, I think, to see him again.

Faustina looked still more scared and bewildered than before at this sudden change of actors and of parts. She would gladly have left the room but she was incapable of anything of the kind--besides, where should she go? The scene seemed to swim before her eyes, and the lights to flicker. She sank down on her chair again.

The Prince had never looked so well. He was flushed with excitement, and the habitual _insouciance_ of his manner had given place to a reality and earnestness of purpose which rendered eloquent his every gesture and look. He was exquisitely dressed in silk, embroidered with flowers. The priceless lace at his wrists and throat accommodated itself, with a delicate fulness, to the soft outline of his dress and figure. His expression was full of kindliness and protection, but of kindliness delicate and refined. The girl's eyes were fascinated in spite of herself.

"Have you quarrelled with the Maestro, Tina?" said the Prince. "He seemed in a marvellous hurry to be gone."

Faustina made two or three ineffectual attempts to speak before she could find her voice. She burst into tears.

"He is cruel! cruel!" she said. "He does not love me. He will not have me any longer. He throws me away."

"Poor child!" said the Prince, "you will not be deserted. I am your friend; we are all your friends. The Maestro even will come back to you. He is cross and angry. When he finds how lost he is without you and your lovely voice, he will come back to you; you and he will carry all before you again."

"Speak to him, Highness!" cried the girl passionately. "You are kind and good to all--kinder than any one to me. Speak to him! do not let him go without me! He cannot live without his music, and no one surely can know his music so well as I, whom he has taught!"

She looked so indescribably attractive in her tears and her distress that the Prince wondered at the sight. "Let her go, indeed!"

"Tina," he said very kindly, "I fear that can hardly be. The Maestro is only going for a time. There is, in fact, no need that he should go at all. It is his own wish, his own wish, Tina. He is too old to make his way among strangers, and will soon come back. But you we cannot spare. You are too much a favourite with us all. We are too much accustomed to you: every one would miss you--the Princess and all; you must stay with us."