Gertrude Page 10

  I was still engaged as violinist of the orchestra for the short summer season, but I had asked for my release in the autumn, because I thought I needed all my time and energy for my work. The Director, who was angry at my leaving, treated me at the last with a selected brand of brutality which Teifer helped me parry and ridicule.

  With this true friend I worked on the instrumentation of my opera, and although he respectfully gave my ideas their full value, he inexorably laid his finger on every error in the orchestration. Often he flew into a passion and upbraided me like a stern Director, until I had erased or changed a doubtful phrase with which I was enamoured. And he had always examples ready when I doubted and was uncertain. When I wanted to insist upon something that was orchestrally impossible, or feared to risk a bold, orchestral effect, he came running with scores and showed me how Mozart or Lortzing had done, and pointed out that my hesitation was cowardice and that my persistence was pig-headed. We scolded each other, we fought and we struggled. And when all this happened at Teifer’s, Brigitte listened respectfully, came and went with wine and cigars, and sympathetically smoothed out many a crumpled score. Her admiration for me was like her love for her brother. In her eyes I was a master! Every Sunday I had to take dinner with them, and afterwards, if there were no black clouds in the sky, we went out into the country by train. There we walked over the hill and through the woods, talked and sang. On one of these walks we went for a bite to a country inn out of whose windows we heard the music of a country dance. And when we had finished and sat in the garden drinking our cider, Brigitte slipped away into the house, and as we noticed it and looked after her we saw her dance past the window, fresh and gay as a summer morning. When she came back to us Teifer shook his finger at her and opined that she might have invited him to dance. At that she became red and embarrassed, made him a sign to be quiet, and looked at me. “What’s the matter?” asked her brother.

  “Do keep still,” she said. But I saw by chance how she indicated me with her glance, and Teifer said, “ Oh, yes.”

  I said nothing, but it was strange to me to see her embarrassed because she had danced in my presence. It occurred to me for the first time that their walks would have been faster and farther without my hindering company. And from that time I seldom went out with them.

  When we had finished studying the soprano rôle, Gertrude noticed that it was hard for me to give up the frequent visits with her, and the intimate companionship at the piano; and that I avoided inventing excuses for their continuance. So she surprised me with the proposal to accompany her regularly and I went to her on three afternoons a week. Her father approved of our friendship. In any case, he allowed her to have her own way in everything, for she had lost her mother early and had taken her place as mistress of the house.

  The garden was in the full glory of early summer. Flowers were everywhere and birds sang about the quiet house. And when I went through the garden from the street and passed the old statues of the avenue on my way to the well-shaded house, it seemed to me, each time, like the entrance into a lovely place, where voices and things of the world could enter only softened and beautified. The bees hummed outside the windows in the blossoming shrubs. Sunshine and the delicate shadows of the leaves lay in the room. I sat at the piano and heard Gertrude sing, listened to her voice which soared easily and without effort. And when, after a song, we looked at each other, it was trustfully, like brother and sister. I thought many a time I need only to stretch out my hand and lay hold of my happiness gently to have it forever—and never did it. For I wished to wait until she, too, showed desire and longing. But Gertrude seemed to breathe in pure content and to wish for no change. Indeed it often seemed to me as though she begged me not to destroy this quiet understanding and thus disturb our spring.

  If I were disillusioned by it, it comforted me to know how intimately she lived in my music, how she understood me and how proud of it she was. That lasted until June and then Gertrude went away with her father to the mountains. I stayed at home. And when I went past the house, it lay empty behind its trees and the gate was shut. Then the pain began again, grew mighty, and followed me far into the nights.

  In the evening I went to the Teifers’ almost always with music in my pocket, and took my share of their cheerful and contented life, drank their Austrian wine and played Mozart with them. Afterwards I went home through the quiet streets, saw lovers walking in the Park, went tired to bed, and yet found no sleep. Now I could not understand how I had kept myself so like a brother toward Gertrude—why I had never broken the ban, drawn her to me, and stormed and won her. I saw her in her delicate blue and gray gown, merry or earnest. I heard her voice and could not understand how I had been able to hear it without bursting forth in the warmth and fire of wooing. Intoxicated and feverish, I got up, lighted the light, and hurled myself on my work—made voices and instruments woo and plead and threaten, repeated the song of longing in new and agitated melodies. But often this comfort failed me. Then I lay burning and wild in mad sleeplessness, repeated her name, “Gertrude—Gertrude”—confusedly and incoherently. I threw comfort and hope aside and surrendered myself desperately to the shuddering powerlessness of desire. I called upon God and demanded of him why he had created me so; and why he had given me nothing in the place of the happiness—nothing but the gray comfort of burrowing in tone, of painting before my desire, the unattainable in incorporeal, tone-fantasies.

  I succeeded better in the daytime in mastering my passion. Then I shut my teeth, sat at my work from early morning, and compelled peace through long walks, and animation through cold plunges. In the evening I escaped from the shadows of the impending night to the merry companionship of the brother and sister. With them, for hours, I had peace and almost comfort. Teifer saw plainly that I was suffering and was ill, but he attributed it to my work, and counselled me to spare myself. But he himself was all fire for the work and watched my opera as excitedly and impatiently as I myself. Many times I called for him, so as to have him to myself, and we spent the evening in the cool gardens of an inn. Although the lovers, and the evening sky, the lights and fireworks, and the perfume of desire which is felt in the cities in summer evenings were not good for me.

  Things were as bad as they could be! Teifer and Brigitte left for their walking tour in the mountains. Teifer begged me to go with them, and really wanted me, although I, with my lameness, would have spoiled their pleasure. I could not accept. Two weeks I stayed alone in the city, without sleep and without rest—and did no work.

  Then Gertrude sent me a little box filled with Alpen roses from a village in the mountains. And when I saw her handwriting and unpacked the browned, faded blossoms, it seemed as if a glance out of her beloved eyes had fallen upon me. I was ashamed of my wildness and of my distrust. I saw that it would be better if she knew my state of mind, and the next morning I wrote her a short note. Then I told her, half jestingly, that I could not sleep because of longing for her—that I could no longer accept her friendship—that with me it was love. And as I wrote, it all came over me again, and the letter which had begun quietly and half-jestingly, ended wildly and passionately.

  Each day the post brought me greetings and picture-cards from the Teifers. They could not dream that their cards and little notes gave me each time a disappointment—that I was waiting for another letter in another hand.

  Finally it came, a gray envelope with a fine handwriting, and in it a letter:

  “Dear Friend:

  “Your letter puts me in a difficult position. I see that you are suffering, or I should scold you for so surprising me. You know how much I like you, but my present life is dear to me, and I have, as yet, no desire to change it. If I saw that I might lose you, I would do anything to hold you. But your fiery letter I cannot answer. Be patient! Let all be as it was between us, until we see each other again, and can talk together. Then everything will be easier.

  �
�Yours, in Friendship,

  “Gertrude.”

  This did not change things much and yet her letter did me good. It was a greeting from her; she permitted me to pay my court to her and did not send me away. Too, her letter brought something of her with it—something of her dear, cool vision. And instead of the picture which my longing painted, she herself stood before me. Her glance demanded my trust. I felt her presence, and immediately shame and pride arose in me and helped me to conquer the consuming love, and to keep in leash my burning desires. Not cheered, but strengthened and armored, I held myself erect.

  I took my work and went to live at a little inn two hours from the city. And much of the time I sat in a shady bower, covered by already fading lilacs, and there I meditated and marvelled about my life. How did I go lonely and strange along my way, uncertain where it would lead? Nowhere had I struck root; no place could I call home. With my parents, even, I stood in formal relations.

  I had given up my profession to follow dangerous, creative will-o’-the-wisps which did not satisfy me. My friends did not know me. Gertrude was the only human being with whom I could have had complete understanding and complete communion. And my work for which I lived and which alone could give my life meaning was but a chase after shadows, and a building of air castles. Could this really have a meaning and fill a human being’s life, this piling up of a succession of tones, this excited playing of pictures, which at the best could only help to give to another creature a pleasant hour?

  In spite of this I worked fairly faithfully, and during the season the opera came to be completed in my mind, although outwardly much was lacking and very little was written down. Many times I was truly happy and thought with pride how my work would move men—how singers and musicians, directors and chorus leaders must bend to my domination—how thousands would be affected. At other times it seemed fairly uncanny and ghostly that all this activity should have its source in the impotent dreams and fancies of a lonely man whom all pitied.

  Sometimes I lost my courage and believed that my work would never be produced, that it was all artificial and overdrawn. But that was seldom. In reality I was convinced of the living force, of the strength of my work. It was honest and vital; it was alive; and had blood in its veins. And even today when I don’t care to hear it, for I write an altogether different kind of music, nevertheless my whole youth is in this opera. And when many of its melodies come out to greet me, it is like a soft, spring shower, arising out of the forgotten vales of youth and passion. When I think that this longing and this power over the hearts of men came out of weakness and renunciation, I no longer know whether my whole life of that time—and my present life as well—is sweet or bitter to me.

  The summer had begun to wane, when in a dark night, amid wild, passionate, sobbing gusts of rain, I wrote the end of my overture. In the morning the rain was cool and mild; the sky was gray, and the garden was an autumn garden. I gathered up my belongings and went back to the city.

  Of all my acquaintances only Teifer and his sister had returned. They both looked brown and healthy, and had had many wonderful experiences on their trip. They were full of interest and expectation to see how my work had progressed. We ran through the overture, and it was almost solemn to me when Teifer laid his hand on my shoulder, and said to his sister: “Brigitte, look at him. There is a great composer.” In spite of all my longings and hunger, I awaited Gertrude’s return with confidence. I had a beautiful piece of work to show her, and I knew she would love it, understand it, and enjoy it as if it were her own. But I was most eager to show it to Heinrich Muoth, whose help was indispensable, and from whom I had heard nothing for months.

  Finally he appeared, just before Gertrude’s return. One morning he walked into my room. He looked at me for a long time.

  “You look dreadful,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, if one will write such things! ”

  “Have you looked over the rôle?” I asked.

  “Looked it over! I know it by heart, and will sing it as soon as you want me to. It’s a damned fine score! ”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “You will see! Your happiest time is over. As soon as your opera is produced your attic fame is a thing of the past! But that is your affair. When shall we try the music? I have a few changes to suggest. How nearly finished is it?”

  I showed him as much as there was to show, and he took me with him back to his rooms. There, for the first time, I heard him sing the rôle in which I had, through all my passionate experience, thought always of him. I felt the power of my music in his voice. Now, I could see the whole as it would be on the stage. Now, first, my own flame burned its fire in me and let me feel its warmth. It no longer belonged to me. It was no longer my work. Now it had its own life and moved me with a strange power.

  For the first time I felt the deliverance of a work by its creator, something which, before, I had never quite believed. My work began to take form, to show life. But a moment since I had held it in my hand, and now it was mine no more. It was like a child who had outgrown its father, who lived and moved, and exerted power of itself. It looked at me independently out of strange eyes, and yet it bore my name and my brand on its forehead. Later, at the opera performances, I had the same terrifying sensation.

  Muoth had studied his part well, and what he wanted changed I could easily do. Then he asked curiously about the soprano rôle which he only half knew. He wanted to know if I had heard it sung by an artist. Then, for the first time, I had to tell him about Gertrude, and I succeeded in doing it quietly and naturally. He had often heard of her but had never been invited to her home, and he was astonished to learn that she had studied and could sing the rôle.

  “She must have a good voice,” he commented, “high and clear. Will you take me there with you some time?”

  “Quite apart from that I was going to ask you. I would like to hear you sing with her. Some corrections will be necessary. As soon as they have returned I will ask permission.”

  “Truly, you are a lucky fellow, Kuhn! For the orchestration you have Teifer to help you. You will see! The opera will be a success.”

  I said nothing. I had no thought to give to the future, to the fate of my opera. First, it must be finished. Since I had heard it sung, I, too, believed in the art of my work.

  Teifer, to whom I had told this said grimly: “I believe in it now. That Muoth has the strength of a savage! If he were only more thorough! He never thinks of the music, only of himself. He’s a rake—a Don Juan in everything! ”

  The day when I went through the autumn garden, under the softly falling leaves, to look for Gertrude, my heart beat oppressively. But she, who had grown more beautiful and more robust, came smilingly to meet me, gave me her hand, and with her beloved voice, her bright glance, and her whole noble self, drew me with old magic. It was good to lay away my cares and sorrows and I was glad to be again in her healing presence.

  She took me under her protection, and as I found no way clear to speak of my letter and of my entreaties, she, too, was silent, and gave no sign that our comradeship was disturbed and imperilled. She did not try to draw away from me. Often she was alone with me. She trusted that I would consider her desires and not repeat my wooing before she herself gave me a sign. Without delay we took up all that I had worked on in the months of her absence, and I told her that Muoth knew his rôle and praised it. I asked permission to bring him there with me as it was necessary to hear both the main parts together. She gave me her consent.

  “I give my permission unwillingly,” she said. “You know that I seldom sing before strangers, and before Heinrich Muoth it will be doubly difficult. Not only because he is a famous artist. There is something about him that terrifies me—at all events upon the stage. But it will probably be all right! ”

  I did not dare to shield my friend and to praise him, for fear of making her more tim
id. I was convinced that after the first trial, she would enjoy singing with him.

  A few days later I drove up with Muoth. We were expected, and with great politeness and formality, were received by the master of the house. He had not minded my intimate visits and comradeship with Gertrude, and would have laughed if anyone had commented upon it. But it pleased him little that Muoth should come. But Muoth was so elegant and correct that they were both pleasantly surprised in him. This singer who was cried abroad as violent and haughty, could show charming manners. He was not vain, and, though decided in his speech, he was modest.

  After a while, Gertrude asked, “Will you sing?” and we got up to go into the music room. I seated myself at the piano, sketched the prelude and scenes, gave the explanations and finally asked them to begin. She started timidly and cautiously, in a half voice. Muoth, on the contrary, when his turn came, sang without hesitation and in full voice. He carried us with him so that Gertrude now let herself go. Muoth, who was accustomed to treat the women of aristocratic house very formally, now became mindful of her, and followed her singing with sympathy. He expressed his admiration in hearty sincerity, as to a colleague. From then on, all the self-consciousness disappeared. The music made us friends of one mind, and my work, that still lay there half dead, in disconnected bits, grew more and more into oneness. I knew now that the vital thing had been done and could not really be spoiled, and it was good in my eyes. I did not conceal my joy and thanked my two friends with emotion. In a happy, but almost ceremonious spirit, we left the house and Muoth carried me off to an improvised banquet at his hotel. There, over the champagne, he did what he had never been willing to do. He called me by my Christian name, and I rejoiced.