Leschetizky spends Christmas in the old-fashioned German way, enjoying it afresh each time it comes round. For a week beforehand he is hard at it, buying gifts, tying them up, writing on names, choosing the tree, ordering the candles, bustling about and making everybody's life a burden, in order that everything should be quite perfectly and beautifully done. All this is a profound secret to every one else in the house. When the evening comes, the guests are hurried upstairs on their arrival, lest they should catch a premature glimpse of the wonderful things prepared for them below. Presently the organ peals, the doors of the salon are thrown open, and they go down, passing in silently and carefully, for everything is dark inside, and in the dimness only the outline of a shadowy figure seated at the organ is visible. The music, soft at first, grows gradually louder, brighter, and more triumphant, until suddenly, when it swells out into a glory of sound, some one draws back the curtain of the inner room; and the tree, sparkling in a blaze of light, is disclosed to view. No one speaks until the music dies away, and Leschetizky closes the organ to break the spell. "Now for the presents! The youngest first." Notepaper, fans, paper-knives, gloves, calendars, a silk blouse—every sort of gift is there, each chosen specially for the donee with much care and thought by the Father Christmas of the ceremonies. Congratulations over, chairs are cleared away, rugs taken up and the room made ready for dancing till supper, Leschetizky playing for at least part of the evening. Toasts, speeches, stories, and laughter fill the hours till early morning, when, about 5 a.m., a happy, but exhausted, procession streams homeward, stopping on the way at some café—if it is not yet 6 o'clock—to make sure the hall-porter, with his dripping candle and everlasting demand for his ten-kreutzer fee, will be safely gone to his lair.
THE PROFESSOR'S BIRTHDAY
Leschetizky's birthday, his Name-Day, New Year, and Twelfth Night, are all opportunities for festivals; so, too, in a small way, are the fortnightly suppers after the class.
Entering completely into all that is going on, Leschetizky is a most delightful host; the very embodiment of fun, his presence in itself is entertainment enough. As a raconteur he stands almost unrivalled, and his powers of mimicry are in themselves sufficient to justify a career. He is the most appreciative of listeners and the easiest of guests, finding pleasure in everything, charming and genial from first to last.
Aristocrat in life, as well as in music, he exacts from those around him gentle manners and delicate observances. The rough diamond does not attract him. His natural love of order desires everything to be in its place and suitable to the moment.
Leschetizky is of small build, extremely wiry and highly-strung, magnetic from top to toe. The whole man is charged with electricity, which sparkles out of him whenever anything evokes it. He gives the impression of being the very essence of nervous force, rather than the possessor of great physical energy. A certain aristocratic spirit reveals itself in the fierceness of his eye, and in his short quick step. Of iron will, he waits for no man. He knows what he wants and intends to have it. He is, in fact, peremptory. His orders must be carried out instantly. If the slave is not up to time—off with his head! If he imagines any one to be endowed with a certain characteristic, nothing will dissuade him from the notion. Whether the person really has this quality or not is beside the question. Leschetizky's imagination is so strong that it entirely obliterates reality, and the idea that has taken hold of his mind for the time being becomes so fixed that argument to the contrary is worse than useless. Justice implies dispassionate criticism, and this he reserves for musical matters only.
Like all individualistic natures he desires the monopoly of certain emotions. He may be sad, but others must not be so. Whatever their inward thoughts, externally they must be gay. He must be weaned from sadness. The sight of a dismal face affects his entire mood. He would ignore the darker side of things entirely, if he could. Not because his is a frivolous or superficial nature, merely varied by an occasional streak of earnestness, as the whimsical flitting to and fro of his fancies might suggest, but because he is a man upon whom has flashed at moments a certain comprehension of the unfathomable mystery of the world, and who would fain turn away from its solemn to its lighter aspects.
He has experienced ill winds and dark days, but they have made him neither cynical nor old, nor yet resigned. There is no trace of the philosopher in his composition. Platitudes about the imperfection of human life, or the need of endurance, bore him inexpressibly. He cannot enter into the emotions of the middle-aged. Years have not in the least tempered the eagerness of his outlook. He drinks of life now as fervently as in his youth.
Mobile and impressionable, therefore always ready for a new friend, at the same time he holds loyally to the comrades of old—a rare combination in a nature of this type.