Gertrude Read online

  I, too, seemed changed. I was no longer a solitary man, but was akin to all. In every one I discovered kind and hostile traits. I could not love here and shun there. I was ashamed of my small understanding, and discovered for the first time in my superficial youth that I could not go through life and among men so simply—here with love and there with hate; here with veneration and there with condemnation—but that all was mingled together and could hardly, at a glance, be separated and distinguished. I looked at this woman who walked by my side, so silent now, and considered how also in her heart were many other things than those of which she had thought and had spoken.

  Finally we came to her home. She held out her hand to me. I took it gently and kissed it. “Good night,” she said, “sleep well.” Her voice was kind but there was no smile on her lips.

  I went home and to bed. At once I went to sleep and slept until late in the morning. Then I sprang up like a Jack from his box. I did my exercises; bathed and dressed, and thought of the night before, only when I saw my coat on a chair, and missed my violin case. In my long sleep I had other memories and I had lost the thread of my thoughts. I had only a remembrance of a detached and small, rather than of a wonderful, experience, and I was astonished that I seemed to be unchanged and quite the same.

  I would have worked but my violin was not there. I went out, at first undecided, then definitely started in the direction of Muoth’s house. When I got before the garden gate I heard him singing. The dog fell upon me, but was led back with some difficulty by the old woman, who quickly came out. She let me enter, and I told her I only wished my violin and would not disturb her master. My violin case was in the hall, and the violin was in it. Also the manuscripts were placed upon it. Muoth must have done that. He had thought of me! He sang loudly. I heard him walking up and down as though upon felt soles, now and then striking a note upon the piano. His voice rang fresh and clear, dominating, as I had so often heard it on the stage. He was singing a rôle unknown to me, and he repeated frequently, pacing rapidly up and down the room.

  I had picked up my things and was going. I was quiet and felt hardly touched by the remembrance of yesterday. But I was curious to see him—to see whether he had changed. I went nearer and, almost without willing it, I had the doorknob in my hand, had turned it, and stood in the open doorway.

  Muoth turned, still singing. He was in his night clothes, in a long, white, fine shirt, and he looked as fresh as if he had just come from his bath. I was startled now, too late, at having so surprised him. He showed no astonishment that I had entered without knocking, nor did he seem conscious that he had on no clothes. As though this were the most natural thing he shook my hand and asked:

  “Have you had your breakfast?” When I told him I had he took me to the piano.

  “Here is a new rôle for me. Listen to this Aria. That’s the genuine thing! They are giving it at the Royal Opera with Büttner and Drielli. But what’s that to you or to me? How are you? Did you rest well? You looked done up when you left last night. And you were angry, too, with me. Oh, well. We will not begin with that foolishness again.”

  And then immediately, without giving me an opportunity to say anything:

  “Do you know Kranzl is a bore. He will not play your sonata.”

  “But he did play it last night.”

  “In concert, I mean. I wanted to palm it off on him, but he would not have it. It would have been fine if it could have been given this next winter at a matinee. Kranzl isn’t so foolish, you know, but lazy. He plays this Polish music all the time, by inski and owski. He doesn’t like to learn anything new.”

  “I don’t believe,” I began, “that my sonata would do for a concert. I have never imagined it would. It is not perfect enough, technically.”

  “That is all foolishness! You with your artist conscience! We are no school teachers, and without doubt worse things will be played, especially by Kranzl. But I don’t know anything else to do. You must give me the song and write some more soon. I am going away in the spring. I have notified them. I am going to have a long vacation. I might give a few concerts, but something new. No more Schubert and Wolff and Lowe, and others that one may hear any evening, but original and unknown things. A few little things such as the Avalanche Song. What do you think?”

  For me the prospect of having my song sung by Muoth was like an opening of the door into the future, through whose crack I could see great glory. But still I wished to be cautious, and not to take advantage of Muoth’s friendship, and also not to become too greatly indebted to him. I felt he would draw me to him too forcibly, that even he might deceive and perhaps use force with me. So I was noncommittal.

  “I will see,” I said. “You are very kind to me, I know, but I cannot promise. I am approaching the end of my study and must now think of an honorable certificate. Whether I can ever come forward as a composer is uncertain. Meanwhile I am a violinist and must see if I can soon find a position.”

  “Ah, of course you can do that. But if you happen to write another song like the first one, you will give it to me, will you not?”

  “Yes, by all means. I truly do not know why you take so much interest in me.”

  “Are you afraid of me? Simply because I like your music. I’d like to sing some of your things because they mean something to me. It is pure selfishness.”

  “Then why did you talk to me as you did yesterday?”

  “Ah, you are still hurt about that? What did I really say? I don’t remember. At least I did not mean to be so brutal to you as I seem to have been. But then you can defend yourself! Every one is what he is and must be, and we must take every one for what he is worth.”

  “I think so, too. But you did exactly the contrary. You irritated me, and thought nothing that I said was worth anything. You drew from me things of which I don’t like to think—my very secrets—and then you threw them at me with a reproach. You even made fun of my lame leg! ”

  Heinrich Muoth said slowly: “Yes—yes. People are very different. It makes one wild if one tells him the truth and another can not bear claptrap. It angered you because I didn’t treat you as if you were an officer. And it angered me that you hid your real self from me, and tried to pass off on me all that talk about the comfort of Art! ”

  “I meant what I said. The difficulty is I am not used to talking about these things. And about the other—about my—well, I will not even speak of that. How it appears to me, and whether I am sad or despairing; how my leg became crippled—that I will keep to myself, and be threatened and ridiculed by nobody! ”

  He stood up.

  “I haven’t much on, but it won’t take me long to dress. You are a respectable man. I am not. We will not talk about it. Did you never observe that I liked you? Stay a while. Sit at the piano, until I dress. Do you sing? No? I’ll be ready in six minutes.”

  And truly it took him no longer.

  “Now, let’s go into the city and have something to eat,” he said. He didn’t ask whether it suited me; only said, “Let’s go.” And we went. His manner irritated me, but he was the stronger. However, there was in his conversation and in his behavior, a capricious child-likeness that was often charming and very appeasing.

  After that I saw Muoth often. He sent me frequent tickets to the opera, many times asked me to come and play for him, and if not everything in him pleased me, no doubt not everything in me pleased him. There was a friendship between us—my only one—and I began to dread the time when he would no longer be near me. He had actually resigned and would not remain in spite of the many inducements. Now and then he explained that perhaps in the autumn, he might accept a call to a large opera house, though even that was only provisionally discussed.

  In the meantime came the spring. One night I was present at the last bachelor evening at Muoth’s. This time no woman was there. In the early morning, Muoth accompanied us
to the garden gate, waved to us, and shivering in the morning mist, accompanied by the jumping and barking dog, he went back to his half dismantled rooms. I felt that a chapter of my life and my experience had been closed. I thought I knew Muoth well enough to be sure that he would soon forget us all. And now I first clearly realized how I had almost loved this moody, ill-humored, domineering man.

  The time for my own departure approached. I paid my last visits to people and to places of which I had grown fond. Once, too, I went out upon the highway and looked upon the precipice which I had not forgotten.

  Then I started for my home, to wait, in all probability, a long while for my future. I had no position. I could not give concerts. At home there was nothing in view, to my horror, except to give violin lessons. Of course my parents expected me, and they were rich enough, so I didn’t have to worry. And they were too fine and kind to oppress and question me as to my future. But I knew from the very first that I would not stay there long.

  There is little to tell of the ten months in which I sat in the house, gave lessons to three people, and in spite of all was not unhappy. Here, people also lived; here, too, almost daily something happened. But to every one my relation remained one of friendly, polite indifference. Nothing really pierced my heart; nothing carried me along with it. On the contrary I lived in complete retirement, snatched a few hours of music for myself; but my whole life was benumbed and everything seemed strange to me. Only a hunger for music remained which tortured me unendurably during my violin lessons, and certainly made me a bad teacher.

  Afterwards, when my duty was done, or when I sneaked away from my lesson with tricks and lies, I bathed myself in glorious, unreal dreams; built lofty aircastles of tones; forced towers into the air and vaulted summits. When I went around in bewilderment and ecstasy, which estranged my youthful acquaintances and caused my parents worry, I felt the spring in me bubble up more powerfully and richly than during that year in the mountains. The fruit of the dreaming, the assimilating, seemingly lost years, suddenly ripened, fell quietly and gently, one after the other, and had a fragrance and gloss which surrounded me with richness, and which I accepted hesitatingly and with mistrust. It began with a song which was followed by a violin phantasy, and in a few months, by other songs and many symphonic sketches. I considered them all as merely a beginning, and an experiment. In my heart, however, I thought of a great symphony, and in my boldest moments, even of an opera.

  However, from time to time, I wrote humble letters to concert conductors and theaters, inclosing the recommendations of my teachers, and modestly offering myself to fill the first best violin position which would be open. There came short, polite answers, beginning with a “Most Honored Sir:” and sometimes there was no answer. But there came no position. Then for a day or two I felt small and very humble. I gave most painstaking lessons and courageously wrote new letters. Then suddenly, it would come to me that I had a head full of music to be written down, and hardly had I begun again, than letters and the theater, and orchestras and the concert conductors and the many “honorable sirs” sunk into nothingness, and I found myself alone, very busy and very happy.

  There are recollections, of which, for the most part, one cannot tell. What a man is to himself, and what he experiences; how he is born, and grows, and sickens, and dies—that cannot be told. The life of a man of work is tedious, while the lives and destinies of the ne’er-do-wells are interesting. Only once did I touch for an instant a man whom I could never forget. That was the teacher, Lohe.

  One day in the late autumn I went for a walk. South of the city there was an unassuming suburb, where no rich people dwelt, but little merchants and retired employees, in small, cheap houses with simple gardens. A skillful young carpenter had built here many pretty houses, which I had seen but once. It was a warm afternoon. Here and there some late nut trees were being picked. The gardens, and small new houses lay basking in the sun. The pretty, simple buildings pleased me, and I looked at them with the superficial, comfortable interest that young people have for so many things, when thoughts of house and home and family, rest and holidays, lie far in the future. But the peaceful street made a pleasing, comfortable impression. I walked through it slowly, and as I walked I made a point of reading the names of the owners on the small, polished brass plates on the garden doors.

  On one of these plates was the name, “Konrad Lohe,” and as I read it the name seemed familiar. I stood there and tried to think, and it suddenly occurred to me that this was the name of one of my teachers in the Latin School. And the old times looked at me as if wounded, and a fleeting swarm of faces danced before my memory—of teachers and comrades, of nicknames and anecdotes. And while I stood there and stared at the brass plate smilingly, a man rose from behind a currant bush which he was trimming. He walked straight up to me and looked into my face.

  “Do you wish to see me?” he asked.

  There was Lohe, the instructor—Lohe whom we had called Lohengrin!

  “Properly speaking, no,” I said, and took off my hat. “I did not know that you lived here. I was once your pupil.”

  He looked at me sharply, glanced down at my cane, tried to remember, and then spoke my name. He hadn’t recognized my face, but my lame leg, for of course he knew of my accident. Then he asked me to come in.

  He was in his shirt sleeves and had a green garden apron tied around him. He did not seem to have aged and looked splendidly healthy. We walked around the small, well-kept garden; then he led me to an open veranda, where we sat down.

  “I would never have recognized you,” he frankly confessed. “I hope you remember me pleasantly.”

  “Not altogether,” I answered, smiling. “You punished me once for something I did not do, and declared all my explanations lies. It was in the Fourth class.”

  He looked at me, distressed. “You must not remember that against me. I am sorry. With the best intentions, a teacher often decides that something is not right, and an injustice soon results. I know of worse cases than yours. That is one of the reasons why I left.”

  “So you have no position?”

  “Oh, not for a long time. I was sick, and when I had recovered, my views were so changed that I took my leave. I had tried very hard to be a good teacher. But I was not. For that a man must be born. So I gave it up. And since then it’s been much better with me.”

  One could see that. I asked some other questions, but he wished to know my story, which was soon told. It did not please him at all that I had become a musician, but he had a kind and gentle pity for my ill luck which did not hurt me. Cautiously he sought to discover what had succeeded in comforting me, and my half-evasive answers did not please him. With a mysterious manner, hesitatingly, but impatiently, and with timid circumlocution, he made it known that he knew of a comfort, a perfectly developed system of philosophy, that would give solace to anyone who sought it earnestly.

  “Oh, I know,” I said; “you mean the Bible.”

  Lohe smiled timidly. “The Bible is good. It is a way to knowledge, but it isn’t knowledge itself.”

  “And where is that—the knowledge, itself?”

  “That you will find easily, if you desire it. I will lend you something to read that will give you the elements of it. Have you ever heard of the teaching of Karma?”

  “Of Karma? No—what is it?”

  “Wait! You will see.”

  He left me for a few minutes during which I sat in an uncertain expectation and looked down into the garden, with its straight rows of dwarfed fruit trees. Soon Lohe came hurrying back. He looked at me beamingly and held towards me a little book, which bore the title in the middle of a mysterious scroll: “Theosophical Catechism for Beginners.”

  “Take it with you,” he begged. “You can keep it. And if you want to study further, I can loan you more. For this is only a beginning. I owe everything to this teaching. Throug
h it I have been made well in body and soul. And I hope it will do as much for you.”

  I took the little book and put it in my pocket. The man accompanied me through the garden to the street, took a friendly leave of me, and asked me to come again. I looked into his face, so good and happy, and it seemed it could not harm me to seek the way to such happiness. So I went home, the little book in my pocket, curious about the first steps on this path to blessedness.

  But I didn’t take those steps for a few days. On my return home, music drew me with all its power. I threw myself into it, and fairly swam in music. I wrote and played until the storm was spent, and, disenchanted, I turned back into my life of every day. There I soon found the need to study the new teaching, and took up the little book which I thought soon to exhaust.

  But it did not go so easily. That little book smouldered under my hand and left me at the end, exhausted. It began with an agreeable and attractive preface about the various ways to knowledge, of which each had its value. It told about the brotherhood of theosophists who strove for complete freedom for knowledge and spiritual perfection, to whom every faith is sacred, and every path to life is welcome. Then came a cosmogony which I did not understand, a distribution of the world into different planes and history into different eras, unknown to me. It even mentioned the lost Atlantis.

  I read this for a while and then I rested and took up the other chapters, where was the theory of being born again, which I could understand somewhat better. Although it wasn’t clear to me whether it all was mythology and poetical fancy, or whether it was to be taken as literal truth. It seemed to be the latter, which I could not understand. It showed a religious veneration for the law of nature which I liked better. And so it went on. I soon saw very well that this whole teaching could only be a comfort and a treasure for those to whom it was possible to accept it literally and to believe it entirely. Others, like me, to whom this endeavor to solve the riddle of the world was partly beautiful, and partly only an intricate symbol, might indeed learn from it, but could gain no life nor strength from it.