Gertrude Read online

  “Yours,

  “Heinrich Muoth.”

  I had not expected this. I could play my music, which as yet no one knew, before connoisseurs! And I could play it with Kranzl! Ashamed and grateful, I accepted, and in two days was asked by Kranzl to send him my manuscript. In a few days he sent for me. The popular violinist was still young—a virtuoso of great finish—very small and slender and pale.

  “So,” he said the minute I entered, “you are also the friend of Muoth. Well, let’s begin right away. When we have adapted it, it will go in two or three rehearsals.”

  He sat down, put before me the second part, indicated the tempo, and began with his light, sensitive touch. But I almost collapsed.

  “Not so timid,” he said, without interrupting his playing. “We will play it all through. Ah! It goes so? Too bad you haven’t a better violin. Never mind. Let us take the allegro a little faster, so it won’t sound like a funeral march. Ready.”

  Then I played with assurance by the side of that virtuoso. My cheap violin blended naturally with his costly one. And I was astonished to find this strange-appearing man so natural—yes, almost naïve. As I thawed and gained more courage, I asked him hesitatingly for his opinion of my composition.

  “You must ask someone else that, dear man. I know nothing about it. It is indeed a little unusual but the people like that. If Muoth likes it you may be flattered. He is not infatuated with everything.”

  He corrected my playing and showed me a few places where changes were necessary. Then we agreed upon another rehearsal for the following morning, and I went home. It was a comfort to me, to find this violinist so simple and honest. If he was one of Muoth’s friends, could I not, also, be one? True, he was a finished artist, and I, a beginner without great prospects. It only grieved me that no one would openly criticise my work. A harsh judgment would have pleased me better than these good-natured statements that meant nothing.

  It was bitterly cold that day. One could hardly keep warm. My comrades eagerly went skating. It was a year since the accident with Liddy. It was a hard time for me and I looked forward to the evening at Muoth’s. I did not build many hopes on it. But I had been so long without friends and without merriment!

  On the night before the eleventh of January, I was awakened by unusual sounds and an almost terrifying warmth in the air. I got up and went to the window, astonished that it was no longer cold. For suddenly the south wind had come. It blew—it was moist and lukewarm. Above, a storm drove great, lowering clouds across the sky, in which, in small gaps, a few stars gleamed, strangely large and dazzling. The roofs were covered with black flecks, and in the morning when I went out, all the snow had vanished. The streets, even the faces of the people, seemed curiously changed, and over all floated the early breath of spring.

  I spent that day in a feverish excitement, partly because of the south wind and the intoxicating air, partly in great excitement and expectation of the evening. Often I took out my sonata, played a few bars, and threw it down again. At times I found it truly beautiful, and I had great pride in it; at other times it seemed suddenly small, patchy and obscure. I could not have endured the suspense and anxiety very long. Finally, I no longer knew whether I feared or longed for the approaching evening.

  But it came. I put on my evening dress, and took my violin case, and started for Muoth’s house. In a suburb, in an unknown and unfrequented street, with great difficulty, because of the darkness, I found the house. It stood in a large garden which seemed neglected and overgrown with weeds. Behind the unlocked garden door, a large dog fell upon me, but he was called off from a window and accompanied me, growling, to the entrance. Here a little, old woman with troubled eyes met me, took my coat, and led me through a briefly lighted corridor.

  The violinist Kranzl lived luxuriously, and I had expected Muoth would live so also, for seemingly he was rich. I saw two large, wide rooms, much too large for a bachelor who is seldom at home. Everything seemed simple—rather, not simple, but casual and unordered. The furniture, too, was old and seemed to belong to the house. Here and there were a few new pieces, bought without any selection, and placed without any care. The lighting alone was luxurious. There was no gas, but a profusion of white candles in simple, beautiful, pewter candlesticks. In the drawing room there also hung a chandelier, a smooth, brass ring set with many candles. The principal piece of furniture was a stately, grand piano.

  In the room, into which I was shown, a few men stood talking. I put down my violin case and bowed. Some of them nodded, then turned again to one another. I stood there, a stranger. Then Kranzl, who was standing by them, and had not noticed me at first, came to me, gave me his hand, presented me to his friends, and said:

  “This is our new violinist. Have you brought your violin?” Then he called out into the next room: “Muoth, here is our man with the sonata.”

  Heinrich Muoth came in, greeted me cordially, and took me with him into the next room where everything seemed festive and cheery, and where a beautiful woman in white dress offered me a glass of sherry. She was a member of the Courts Theater company. I saw to my astonishment that none of our host’s colleagues had been invited and that she was the only woman. In spite of my weak protest, she refilled the glass I had hastily drained, half in embarrassment, and half in need of the warmth, after my walk in the damp evening.

  “Oh, take it! It can not hurt you. We will not get anything to eat until after the music. You have brought your violin and your sonata?”

  I gave a timid answer and was embarrassed because I did not know in what relation she stood to Muoth. She seemed to be the hostess. She was certainly a delight to the eyes, as was every woman with whom, in the following years, I saw Muoth associate.

  In the meantime the guests assembled in the music room. Muoth brought in a music stand; we were seated, and soon, with Kranzl, we were in the midst of my music. I played as though in a dream, and only now and then did I become conscious that I was playing here with Kranzl, that this was the timidly longed-for great evening, and that here was a little group of connoisseurs and artists before whom I was playing my sonata. It was during the Rondo that I first began to notice how wonderfully Kranzl was playing; for I was so filled with confusion that I kept on thinking continuously of irrelevant things—it suddenly occurred to me that I had not congratulated Muoth on his birthday!

  The sonata was finished. The beautiful woman got up, gave her hand to me and to Kranzl, and opened the door to a smaller room where a table set with bottles and flowers awaited us.

  “At last! ” said one of the men, “I am simply starving.”

  The woman warned him. “You are a monster! What will the composer think?”

  “What composer? Is he here?”

  She pointed to me. “There he is.”

  He looked at me and laughed. “You should have told me that before. For the music was truly beautiful. Only when a man is hungry?”

  We began to eat, and hardly were the soup plates removed, and the wine poured, than Kranzl proposed a toast to our host and his birthday.

  After the clinking of the glasses, Muoth rose: “Dear Kranzl, if you think I am going to make a speech about you, you are mistaken. Above all, we will have no speeches! The only thing which, perhaps, is necessary to say, I take upon myself. I thank our young friend for his sonata which I consider great. Perhaps our Kranzl will some day be proud to get hold of some of his compositions. I am sure he feels so, for he played the sonata wonderfully. I drink to the composer and to good friendship with him! ”

  Every one stood up, laughed, and teased me a bit. Soon the good, warming wine brought a conviviality to which I yielded without reason. It had been a long time since I had indulged in this way—had so let myself go—not for a year. Now the mirth and wine, the clinking of glasses and the hum of voices, and the sight of the beautiful, happy woman, opened to me a vista
of joy, and I slipped lightly into the unconstrained cheerfulness and the lively conversation and laughing mood.

  We left the table early and returned to the music room, where in all the corners were distributed wine and cigars. A quiet man, who had said little and whose name I didn’t know, came to me and said some kind words about my sonata, which I had entirely forgotten. Then the actress drew me into the conversation and Muoth sat down beside us. We drank once more to our friendship, and suddenly he said, with his dark eyes sparkling:

  “I now know your story! ”

  Then to the beautiful woman: “He broke his bones by tobogganing with a pretty girl.”

  And again to me: “That is beautiful. At the instant when love is most beautiful and as yet unstained, to go head foremost down the mountain—that is worth more than a sound leg! ”

  Laughing, he emptied his glass, and almost immediately he looked again arrogant and moody as he continued:

  “How did you come to compose music?”

  I told him of my childhood and of my music. I told him of my summer, of my flight to the mountains, and of the sonata.

  “Ah! ” he said, slowly. “But why does that give you joy? One cannot lose pain by transcribing it on paper.”

  “That is not what I am trying to do,” I said. “The thing I wish to be rid of is weakness and imprisonment. I may find that pain and joy come from the same source and are simply different rhythms—each beautiful and necessary.”

  “But, man,” he burst out, “you have lost the use of a leg. Can music make you forget that?”

  “No—why? But that can never be helped.”

  “And it doesn’t drive you to despair?”

  “It doesn’t make me happy—that you may believe. But I hope it will never drive me to despair.”

  “Then you are fortunate! I would indeed give up no leg for such a happiness! So that is what music is to you? See, Marian, that is the magic of art, about which there is so much in books.”

  Bitterly I flung back to him: “Why do you talk so? You yourself do not sing only for your salary, but you have happiness and comfort in it. Why do you jeer at me and at yourself? I think it is barbarous! ”

  “Oh, be still—be still,” warned Marian, “or he will be angry.”

  Muoth looked at me. “I will not be angry. He is entirely right. But you cannot be so troubled about your leg, or the composing of music would not comfort you for it. You are a satisfied man. Let happen what will, you will remain contented. But I would not have believed it! ”

  He sprang up, raging. “And I don’t believe it now! There is your song. There is no comfort in that—no satisfaction. Nothing but despair. Do you hear?”

  Suddenly he was at the piano and everything became still. He began to play confusedly, then he started the introduction and sang my song. He sang it as he had sung it many times for me, but I could see that since then, he had put much work on it. This time he sang it in full voice, with his high baritone which I had heard on the stage. And the vigor and the passion made me forget the occasional roughness of his singing.

  “And this man has written that! And yet he says he knows nothing of despair, that he is perfectly satisfied with his lot,” he cried as he pointed to me.

  I had tears of shame and of anger in my eyes. I saw everything through a mist. I stood up, in order to make an end of it all, and to go. But a slight, though strong hand held me and pressed me back into my seat, and stroked my brow gently and tenderly until I had to close my eyes to keep back the tears. When I opened them Heinrich Muoth was standing before me. The others who were drinking wine and laughing with one another seemed not to have noticed my agitation or any of the scene.

  “You child,” said Muoth softly. “When one has written such a song, one is above this! But I am sorry. I like you, and I am hardly with you when such a thing happens.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, shyly. “But I must go now. The most beautiful part of today we have had.”

  “All right, I will not keep you. The others will keep on drinking, I suppose. But will you be so good as to take Marian home? She doesn’t live out of your way.”

  The beautiful woman shot him a questioning glance. “Yes, will you?” she said to me. I stood up. We took leave only of Muoth. In the hall a servant helped us into our cloaks, and the little, old woman, very sleepy, lighted our way through the garden to the gate with a great lantern. The wind still blew moist and warm, driving long, black banks of clouds before it, and rustling through the bare tree tops.

  I did not venture to give Marian my arm, but she took it unasked, breathing the night air with her head thrown back, and looking down at me from her height, questioningly and trustingly. And I—I felt again her light hand upon my brow, as she walked slowly and seemed to wish to lead me.

  “There is a cab stand,” I said, for it was painful to me that she should accommodate herself to my lame walk, and I suffered, to be limping near this radiant, strong, slender woman.

  “No,” she said, “let us walk a block farther.” And she took special pains to go slowly. If I had done as I desired I would have drawn her close to me. Then I was torn with torture and anger. I drew my arm away from her. And as she looked at me, astonished, I said:

  “It doesn’t go well, so. I must walk alone. You will pardon me.”

  And she walked carefully and sympathetically near me. And I knew that if I had had a straight walk and the consciousness of bodily strength, I would have said and have done the opposite to what I did and said. I became silent and abrupt. There was nothing else to do, or tears would have come again into my eyes. I was yearning to feel her hand upon my head. I wished I could run away into one of the side streets. I didn’t want her to walk slowly to save me. I didn’t want her pity.

  “Are you angry with him?” she finally asked.

  “No. It was foolish of me—I hardly know him.”

  “I am sorry when he is so. He has days when one must fear him.” “You, too?”

  “I, the most. And yet he never hurts anyone as much as he hurts himself. He hates himself many times.”

  “Oh, he just makes himself interesting.”

  “What do you mean?” she cried out in a shocked tone.

  “That he is an actor. Why must he deride himself and others? Why must he draw out the life and secrets of a stranger to make him ridiculous? He’s a slanderer! ”

  My anger flared out again in my speech. I was willing to revile and to drag down the man who had hurt me and whom I regretfully envied. Also my respect for the woman had declined—that she protected him, and seemed to be so honest to me concerning her relation to him. Was it not wicked that she had taken upon herself to be the only woman at the gay bachelor evening! I was used to little freedom in these things. I was ashamed to be attracted to this beautiful woman. And I decided, in my passion, rather to quarrel with her than any longer, to feel her pity. If she should find me rude and leave me, it was better than that she should stay with me and be kind.

  She put her hand upon my arm. “Stop! ” she cried so vehemently, that in spite of all, her voice went to my heart. “Do not say anything more. What does it matter? You are wounded by two words from Muoth, because you were not quick enough or bold enough to parry them. And now, when you are wrong, you fall upon me with hateful words. I shall go and leave you alone.”

  “Please. I have merely said what I thought.”

  “Do not lie! You accepted his invitation; you played with him; you saw how he loved your music; you were pleased and comforted. And now you are annoyed and cannot endure a word of him. You begin to abuse him. You would not dare that! I will lay it to the wine.”

  It seemed to me that suddenly she saw what was the matter with me, and that it was not the wine that tortured me. She took another tone, although I had not made the least sign of an e
xplanation. I was unarmed.

  “You do not know Muoth,” she said. “Have you not heard him sing? He is like his singing—violent, and a little harsh, but mostly against himself. He is a poor, storm-beaten man with genuine strength, but with no aim. At any moment he will drain the whole world, and what he has, and what he does, is only a drop. He drinks and is never drunk. He has women and is never happy. He sings wonderfully but doesn’t care to be an artist. Whom he loves, he hurts. He pretends to be disdainful and quite satisfied, but he hates himself because he can never be satisfied. That’s the kind of man he is. And he has shown you friendship in the only way he can.”

  I was obstinately silent.

  “Perhaps you do not need him,” she began once again. “You have other friends. But when we see anyone who suffers and is unruly in his suffering, we should overlook that and try to help him.”

  Yes, I thought one should do that, and gradually, as our walk in the night cooled me—although to be sure my wound was still open and cried for help—more and more I was forced to think of what Muoth had said and of my foolishness that evening. I saw myself as a sorry dog, and in the silence asked forgiveness. Now that the glow from the wine had vanished, an ungrateful feeling seized me with which I battled. I couldn’t talk much to the beautiful woman who now, herself agitated and with uncertain heart, walked close by me through the half-dark streets, where here and there, on the dead black surface, the light of a street lamp suddenly flashed on the damp pavement.

  Then I remembered that I had left my violin at Muoth’s, and I awoke in astonishment and alarm concerning everything. For this evening had so changed things! This Heinrich Muoth, and the violinist, Kranzl, and this glorious Marian who played in the rôles of Queens—all had stepped down from their pedestals. At the Olympian table sat not gods and saints, but poor men, one small and comic—the other oppressed and vain. Muoth, miserable and feverish in his foolish self-torture; this impressive woman, little and unhappy as the beloved of a stormy genius, without cheerfulness—and yet she was quiet and kind and familiar with sorrow.