Then the old man rose trembling in every limb, pa.s.sed his hand across his brow--his poor yellow face working....

"Have pity!" he said in a broken voice, "Have pity, she has repented, she is dead!"

Gesa tore back the curtains. There on the white pillow, waxen pale, but beautiful as ever, the parting smile upon her lips, lay Annette.

She had put on the blue dress in which he had first seen her, fourteen months ago--Guiseppina's little cross lay on her breast.

There is a suffering so painful that no hand is tender enough to touch it, and so deep that no heart is brave enough to fathom it. Dumbly we sink the head, as before something sacred.

Never could he reproach her, lying there before him, clad in the blue dress, of which every fold, so dear to him, cried "Forgive!

Not to our desecrated love do I appeal, but to our sweet caressing friendship,--forgive the sister what the bride has done!" How could he reproach her, with her parting kiss still on his lips?

She had drawn off her betrothal ring, and laid it on the coverlet enclosed in a folded letter, where in her large, unskilled, childish hand, she had written the words: "To my dear, dear brother Gesa. G.o.d bless him a thousand times!"

He placed the ring again on her finger, and kissed her cold hand.

The fearful mystery which separates us from our dead is so incomprehensible that we never realize our loss in all its fulness while the beloved form yet lies before us. Involuntarily we feel as if the dead knew of every little service we render--and this thought hovers around us as a comfort. The whole bitterness of our anguish is first felt when we have buried our happiness, and life with its sterile uses and requirements reenters, and commands: "What have you to do longer dallying with death? I will have my right!"

And so with Gesa, the bitterest pang of all overcame him when, returning home with his foster-father from the churchyard where they had laid the poor "little one" to rest, he found the old green salon all in order. Annette's favorite trifles removed, and the table laid for--two.

They sat down opposite one another, the old journalist and the young musician. Neither ate; Gesa was dumb. Delileo stroked his hand from time to time and murmured, "My poor boy, my poor boy!"

Suddenly Gesa raised his eyes to the old man's face. "Who was it, father?" he asked in a hollow voice.

The "droewige Herr" dropped his eyes.

"I--I do not know"--he stammered.

"Father!" cried Gesa, starting up.

"Nay, I knew nothing. She never confided in me. Very lately I had a suspicion, a fear"--the old father grew more and more distressed.

"You must have remarked it, if Annette was interested in any one?"

cried Gesa, anger in his eyes and shame on his cheeks.

"Ah! she fell under the spell of a demon"--the father stopped, and shut his lips tightly together, and said no more.

One day followed another in monotonous sadness. The "droewige Herr"

went to his daily work: Gesa sat in the green salon and brooded. He said nothing of any more engagement, nothing of going on any more journeys. He dreaded every meeting with acquaintances, with all to whom he had talked of his happiness. There was one single human being for whom he longed, and that was de Sterny. De Sterny had such a rare, almost feminine art of understanding and sympathizing! And then, he would not be surprised like the others--he had foretold it all!

Gesa learned de Sterny's whereabouts. The virtuoso was in England. Gesa wrote him a simple, heartfelt letter, in which he confided to his friend the sudden death of Annette, and ended with the words "Let me know when you are to be in Paris. I will remove there, in order to work near you. Intercourse with you is the only thing in the world that could afford me any comfort now."

To this letter he received no answer. He removed to Delileo's and occupied Annette's chamber.

One day, as he sat at the poor girl's little desk, and searched a drawer for an envelope, he found wedged in a crack the half of a torn note. He knew the writing. "... wild with bliss. At one o'clock in the Rue de la Montague

Thy S."

The violinist read this note twice, then he looked around with a dull, stupefied gaze, stretched his arms on high as those do who are shot through the heart, and sank senseless to the floor.

A lingering nervous fever broke his const.i.tution, and destroyed the little energy he had still possessed. When he began to creep about his chamber, a weary convalescent, with thinned hair, he sought at once for pen and ink. Every day he wrote a letter to de Sterny, and tore it in pieces. When Delileo, who had nursed him through the sickness like a mother, begged him not to excite himself, he only answered, "I must have it off my heart!" and wrote a fresh letter,--but never sent any.

One day he said to himself that it did not become him to write, that he must demand satisfaction from de Sterny face to face. But before that could happen he must recover his health. From that time he wrote no more. He lived his brooding life, idle, and melancholy. His grief was mingled with a burning shame. He constantly feared that he should meet some one who would ask him about his bride, or his friend. At the thought the blood rushed into his cheek, and even when he was quite alone he turned his face to the wall. He trembled in every limb, a wild rage possessed him when he thought of the betrayer. Then--then he remembered the thousand kindnesses to which the virtuoso had accustomed him, his amiability, the cordial tone of his voice. He pressed his hands to his temples and groaned.

He could not understand.

And the days went by, and he did not seek de Sterny. A wild fear of men mastered him. By day he almost never left Delileo's dwelling, but, as his health improved, he gradually accustomed himself to go out at night. He was still young. He felt a vehement desire to deaden the power of feeling. In the midst of the wildest orgies, he sat pale and dumb, with fixed expressionless face. This joyless dissipation he soon gave up, but his wound still craved relief--and slowly, gradually, he gave himself to drink. Music he neglected altogether. Every note awoke a memory. If he had been obliged to earn his bread by his profession, he would probably not have gone so utterly to ruin, but the money which he had brought back from America permitted him to live.

When old Delileo, whom it cut to the heart to see his dear one's hopeless suffering, and his splendid talents so sadly wasted, asked him questions in regard to the future, Gesa answered, "I will work again, but leave me alone now for a while--it is too hard yet." And his fear of mankind more and more sought concealment in Rue Ravestein. In all large cities there are alleys like the Rue Ravestein. Paris has many of them. A man flies thither when he has suffered a fiasco, or a great sorrow, hides himself there from the derision of enemies and the pity of friends ... pity which at the best seems to him but a sentimental form of contempt! He has no intention of pa.s.sing his whole life in that unwholesome obscurity, he will only give his wounds time to heal.

Meanwhile he forges many plans in this voluntary exile; and dreams how he will go back to the world sometime and retrieve all by a grand success. The dreams never see fulfilment. For such streets are graves, and whoever after long years seeks to flee from that solitude, wanders among men like a risen corpse. Superannuated ideas surround and cling to him like the mouldy air of the sepulchre. He speaks a dead language.

XVIII

"The 'satan' is one of the most beautiful of modern musical compositions," announces the _Independence Belge_. "The 'satan'

contains numbers of cla.s.sic beauty," confess the artists. "Have you heard? The 'satan' is a tremendous success!" says the fashionable world to itself. "Satan's" renown penetrates even as far as the Rue Ravestein, and reaches the ear of a starving fiddler there.

Although Delileo has long been dead Gesa still lives in the old house.

The remains of his little savings went during his foster-father's long and weary last illness. Now Gesa supports life as best he can. A dozen years ago every one was comparing him to Paganini; now he is counted among the most obscure members of the "Monnaie" orchestra. Benumbed in melancholy indolence, given over to drink, he feels nevertheless from time to time the longing for creative effort. But something always comes between him and his purpose.

When he hears of the approaching performance, under de Sterny's personal direction, he is shaken with a sudden wild rage.

How dare de Sterny venture on coming to Brussels, in face of the chance that they may meet?

Then he mutters bitterly. "He thinks I am dead. He says to himself, 'If Gesa von Zuylen were still alive the world would have heard of him!'" A fearful pang harrows his very soul. Not the death of his bride, not the treachery of his friend had inflicted a pang like that. The spectre of his great, degraded talent stands suddenly before him.

He has weighed de Sterny's powers of composition. He remembers with triumphant contempt the "transcriptions" and "fantasias" of former times. He recalls the pianist's painful labors over the little "Countess-ballet," until in the full swing of their friendship Gesa took the thing in hand and finished it for him. And now? _Could_ de Sterny have developed into a composer of any importance? He examines his violin part with feverish curiosity, but it contains more rests than notes.

The day of the second rehearsal arrived. Gesa had intended to report himself ill again, but a feeling of breathless anxiety that he could not explain urged him to the music hall. This time it was not the friend of Rossini and the piano teacher alone who had come to hear the rehearsal. The foremost dilettante of Brussels crowded around the stage, all the musical ladies in society sat together in the front rows of the parquet. There was a fever of curiosity and expectation. At the same time that sort of opposition made itself felt which attends upon all novelties that have been immoderately praised.

"_Il parait que c'est epatant_"--said the Count de Sylva, a gentleman who was resting from the fatigues of a laborious diplomatic career, and employed all the time not absorbed by his social duties in studying the violincello. "Epatant," he repeated, walking up to the ladies, "I must confess I do not esteem de Sterny's talent for composition so very highly."

"Nor I either, most decidedly," growled the friend of Rossini. "How he ever contrived to write the 'Satan,' I cannot understand. But that it is a masterpiece is not to be denied. These melodies!--they tyrannize over me! they creep into every nerve, they creep into the blood!

Spectres walk abroad in this music!"

"It is true that great powers require time to ripen," observed Prince L----, "wonderful children seldom come to anything. You may perhaps remember such a case, ladies--the little gypsy whom de Sterny brought to us one evening."

"Hm--a little hunch back in a braided jacket?" asked a lady.

"No--no--that was another--this was a handsome youth from the Rue Ravestein."