IV
They started early to the sale. Janin, as always, walked swiftly, his violin wrapped in a cloth beneath his arm. Harry Baggs lounged sullenly at his side. The day was filled with a warm silvery mist, through which the sun mounted rayless, crisp and round. Along the road plum trees were in vivid pink bloom; the apple buds were opening, distilling palpable clouds of fragrance.
Baggs met the morning with a sullen lowered countenance, his gaze on the monotonous road. He made no reply to the blind man's infrequent remarks, and the latter, except for an occasional murmur, fell silent. At last Harry Baggs saw a group of men about the fence that divided a small lawn and neatly painted frame house from the public road. A porch was filled with a confusion of furniture, china was stacked on the grass, and a bed displayed at the side.
The sale had not yet begun; A youth, with a pencil and paper, was moving distractedly about, noting items; a prosperous-appearing individual, with a derby resting on the back of his neck, was arranging an open space about a small table. Beyond, a number of horses attached to dusty vehicles were hitched to the fence where they were constantly augmented by fresh arrivals.
“Here we are!” Baggs informed his companion. He directed Janin forward, where the latter unwrapped his violin. A visible curiosity held the prospective buyers; they turned and faced the two dilapidated men on the road. A joke ran from laughing mouth to mouth. Janin drew his bow across the frayed strings; Harry Baggs cleared the mist from his throat. As he sang, aware of an audience, a degree of feeling returned to his tones; the song swept with a throb to its climax:
“'You damn ol' nigger, come and bring
Dat boat an' row me home!'”
There was scattered applause.
“Take your hat round,” Janin whispered; and the boy opened the gate and moved, with his battered hat extended, from man to man.
Few gave; a careless quarter was added to a small number of pennies and nickels. Janin counted the sum with an unfamiliar oath.
“That other,” he directed, and drew a second preliminary bar from his uncertain instrument.
“Here, you!” a strident voice called. “Shut your noise; the sale's going to commence.”
French Janin lowered the violin.
“We must wait,” he observed philosophically. “These things go on and on; people come and go.”
He found a bank, where he sat, after stumbling through a gutter of stagnant water. Harry Baggs followed and filled a cheap ornate pipe. The voice of the auctioneer rose, tiresome and persistent, punctuated by bids, haggling over minute sums for the absurd flotsam of a small house keeping square of worn oilcloth, a miscellany of empty jars. A surprisingly passionate argument arose between bidders; personalities and threats emerged. Janin said:
“Listen! That is the world into which musicians are born; it is against such uproar we must oppose our delicate chords—on such hearts.” His speech rambled into French and a melancholy silence.
“It's stopped for a little,” Baggs reminded him.
Janin rose stiffly and the other guided him to their former place. The voice and violin rose, dominated a brief period, and the boy went among the throng, seeking newcomers. The mist thickened, drops of water shone on his ragged sleeves, and then a fine rain descended. The crowd filled the porch and lower floor, bulged apparently from door and windows. Harry Baggs made a motion to follow with his companion, but no one moved; there was no visible footing under cover. They stayed out stolidly in the wet, by an inadequate tree; and whenever chance offered Harry Baggs repeated his limited songs. A string of the violin broke; the others grew soggy, limp; the pegs would tighten no more and Janin was forced to give up his accompanying.
The activities shifted to a shed and barn, where a horse and three sorry cows and farming implements were sold. Janin and Harry Baggs followed, but there was no opportunity for further melody; larger sums were here involved; the concentration of the buyers grew painful. The boy's throat burned; it was strained, and his voice grew hoarse. Finally he declared shortly that he was going back to the shelter by the Nursery.
As they tramped over the rutted and muddy road, through a steadily increasing downpour, Harry Baggs counted the sum they had collected. It was two dollars and some odd pennies. Janin was closely attentive as the money passed through the other's fingers. He took it from Baggs' hand, re-counted it with an unfailing touch, and gave back a half.
The return, even to the younger's tireless being, seemed interminable. Harry Baggs tramped doggedly, making no effort to avoid the deepening pools. French Janin struggled at his heels, shifting the violin from place to place and muttering incoherently.
It was dark when they arrived at the huts; the fires were sodden mats of black ash; no one was visible. They stumbled from shelter to shelter, but found them full. One at last was discovered unoccupied; but they had no sooner entered than the reason was sharply borne upon them—the roof leaked to such an extent that the floor was an uneasy sheet of mud. However, there was literally nowhere else for them to go. Janin found a broken chair on which he balanced his bowed and shrunken form; Harry Baggs sat against the wall.
He dozed uneasily, and, wakened by the old man's babbling, cursed him bitterly. At last he fell asleep; but, brought suddenly back to consciousness by a hand gripping his shoulder, he started up in a blaze of wrath.
He shook off the hand and heard French Janin slip and fall against an insecure wall. The interior was absolutely black; Harry Baggs could see no more than his blind companion. The latter fumbled, at last regained a footing, and his voice fluctuated out of an apparent nothingness.
“There is something important for you to know,” Janin proceeded.
“I lied to you about your voice—I, once a musician of the orchestra at the Opéra Comique. I meant to be cunning and take you round to the fairs, where we would make money; have you sing truck for people who know nothing. I let you sing to-day, in the rain, for a dollar—while I, Janin, fiddled.
“I am a voyou; there is nothing in English low enough. The thought of it has been eating at me like a rat.” The disembodied words stopped, the old man strangled and coughed; then continued gasping: “Attention! You have a supreme barytone, a miracle! I heard all the great voices for twenty years, and know.
“At times there is a voice with perfect pitch, a true art and range; not many—they are cold. At times there is a singer with great heart, sympathy ... mostly too sweet.
“But once, maybe, in fifty, sixty years, both are together. You are that—I make you amends.”
The rain pounded fantastically on the roof a few inches above Harry Baggs' head and the water seeped coldly through his battered shoes; but, in the violent rebirth of the vague glow he had lost a short while before, he gave no heed to his bodily discomfort. “A supreme barytone!” The walls of the hut, the hollow, dissolved before the sudden light of hope that enveloped him; all the dim dreams, the unformulated aspirations on which subconsciously his spirit had subsisted, returned.
“Can you be sure?” he demanded uncertainly.
“Absolutely! You are an artist, and life has wrung you out like a cloth—jail, hungry, outcast; yes, and nights with stars, and water shining; men like old Janin, dead men, begging on the roads—they are all in your voice, jumbled—serious barytone——” The high thin recital stopped, from exhaustion.
Harry Baggs was warm to the ends of his fingers. He wiped his wet brow with a wetter hand.
“That's fine,” he said impotently; “fine!”
He could hear French Janin breathing stertorously; and, suddenly aware of the other's age, the misery of their situation, he asked:
“Don't you feel good?”
“I've been worse and better,” he replied. “This is bad for your throat, after singing all day in the rain. Voyou!” he repeated of himself.
Silence enveloped them, broken by the creaking of the blind man's chair and the decreasing patter of the rain. Soon it stopped and Harry Baggs went outside; stars glimmered at the edges of shifting clouds, a sweet odor rose from the earth, a trailing scent of blossoming trees expanded.
He sang in a vibrant undertone a stave without words. An uneasy form joined him; it was Runnel.
“I b'lieve my head'll burst!” he complained.
“Leave that soda-caffeine be.”
He would never forget Runnel with his everlasting pain; or Dake, who lived by scaring women.... Great audiences and roses, and the roar of applause. He heard it now.