XVIII
"The 'satan' is one of the most beautiful of modern musical compositions," announces the Indépendence Belge. "The 'satan' contains numbers of classic 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."
None of the ladies remembered. "What of him?" they asked.
"Nothing remarkable. I only cited him apropos of wonder children. Never have I heard finer improvisation than his and what has come of it?" At this moment there was a slight stir, de Sterny stepped upon the platform. They clapped applause, they bowed before him, they pressed his hands.
He stood at the conductor's desk and let his eye run over his musical forces--they were all there. Suddenly he turned pale, the baton sank at his side, he longed to flee, the eyes of his aristocratic friends were shining all around him; he rapped on the desk, and the bombastic introduction to "Satan" sounded through the hall.
There was disappointed shrugging of shoulders in the audience. Gesa von Zuylen's mouth showed deep mocking corners. Slowly, painfully, but with increasing confidence he raised his eyes to the director's face, the face that had once been to him as the countenance of a god. He smiled bitterly.
And now the Alto is singing her first song. The audience rouses up as if from an electric shock--and listens amazed, but none listens with such intentness as Gesa von Zuylen.
A strange, strange feeling trembles through him, the feeling of warm young delight, of joyful intoxication with which he wrote that song. Indignation had no chance to be heard, so mighty is the bliss of hearing his own work. It is as if some one had given him back his lost soul. The applause grows louder and louder. As if in a dream he plays on, sometimes he shrinks when some blatant interlude of de Sterny's disfigures his own composition.
"Now comes the most beautiful of all," they whisper in the audience, "the duet of the Outcasts."
In mournful lament are heard the exile's voices, softly, lightly floating, the violin's Angel song mingles with theirs, above, around them, whispering memories of joys forever lost.
Gesa listens--listens--his bow stops, he sees the little green chamber, the smiling friend at the old spinet, and beside him the lovely maiden, her hands clasped in one another, her delicate head slightly bent toward the shoulder, as if it were grown too heavy. "Nessun maggior dolore," he murmurs. The whole audience shouts. The orchestra applauds standing--the amateurs crowd round the stage. But there!--what is this? Panting, breathless, foam on his lips, rage in his eyes, the violinist presses forward through the ranks of the orchestra, up to the director.
"Wretch! Murderer!" he shrieks and strikes him with his bow across the face, then sinks unconscious to the floor. De Sterny passes a hand across his brow, and while the violinist is being carried out, he turns to the capelmeister, who is hurrying up and says with that practiced presence of mind which teaches a man of the world heroism on the scaffold.
"A sudden attack of delirium tremens. You really might have taken pains to spare me such a painful scene!"
The rehearsal proceeded. Gesa was taken home. As soon as he recovered consciousness he sought in all the closets and chests for the original score of his "Inferno" of which he had lent a copy to de Sterny. He never found the manuscript. All he discovered were the disconnected parts of his unfinished opera.