At four o'clock the music-teacher called to take her home. She also was hot and tired and fearfully nervous, she said, after a terribly trying day in her class-room, with her forty-five squirming little Basques. As a rule she and Marise had a good deal to say to each other, because Mlle. Hasparren was the only person Marise knew who had any interest in America. The rest never spoke of it, or if by chance they did, they only asked about buffaloes and Indians, and evidently didn't believe her when she said she'd never seen either. But Mlle. Hasparren knew better, and loved to talk about it, and actually knew the difference between the Civil War and the Revolution, and had heard of Abraham Lincoln and thought he was a greater man than Napoleon! Marise, who was reading a great deal of Victor Hugo, hardly knew whether to agree with this startling idea or not, but she felt when she was with Mlle. Hasparren, that it was safe to open many doors which she usually kept locked, and to talk with her about things she never dreamed of mentioning to anybody else. Which did not, of course, at all prevent her from wishing to goodness Mlle. Hasparren didn't wear such fearful hats, and that her skirts would hang better.
But this hot day of early spring, she thought neither of America or of hats, as she plodded silently beside the equally weary school-teacher, through the dusty stone streets. The depression which had hung over her all day deepened till she felt ready to cry. Wherever she looked she saw Maman standing in that stealthy attitude, looking out of the window. Mlle. Hasparren's worn, swarthy face, under her home-made hat, was plainer than usual.
Isabelle let them in to the empty salon, with her usual air of being cheered up to have something happen, and bustlingly arranged two seats before the piano. Mlle. Hasparren took off her hat and pushed her fingers through her graying hair. Marise fumbled among the music on the piano and pulled out what they were working on, the Toccata in D minor. She flattened it out with both hands on the music-rack above the keys, and sat down. She raised her fingers, made sure of the notes of the first twiddle, and began to play.
She had not wished to take this music-lesson. She had been hot and listless and tired; with a secret heartache and a dread like a black shadow on her heart. She had sat down before a great black varnished wooden box and,—detached, indifferent, pre-occupied, had set her fingers to pushing first one and then another bit of wood covered with white bone.
And what happened?
Out of the black, varnished box, like the mighty genii of the Arabian Nights, soared something beautiful and strong, something that filled the dreary, empty salon and her heavy heart with sonorous life, something which like the genii put its greatness at the service of the being who knew the charm to free it from imprisonment.
"Stronger there, as you come up from the bass," said Mlle. Hasparren, and Marise knew from her voice that she too was soaring up. And yet, although she sounded no longer dull and weary, but strong and joyful, she abated nothing of her exacting rigor. "No, don't blur it because you make it louder. Don't lean on the pedal. Clean power of stroke, that's the thing for Bach. Now try again. Roll it up from that lowest note, like a mid-ocean wave."
She listened, all her personality concentrated on her hearing, her head turned sideways, her eyes fixed on a point in the very far distance. With all her intelligence she listened, and when the immature intelligence of the pupil faltered or failed, she came swiftly to the rescue. "No, take care! you're losing yourself in that passage. You're playing each note correctly but you haven't the sense of the whole thing. There's a rhythmic progression there that starts four measures back, and doesn't end till you swing into those chords. Don't lose your way in what is only a little ornamentation of the line. See, to here—all that is half of the rhythmic figure, and here it is repeated in the bass. Now again! Read it so the meaning comes out."
The nimble flexible young fingers went flying at the passage again, guided and informed by the ripe soundness of the older mind, and from a passage which Marise had physically mastered as mechanically as she would an exercise, she heard the master-voice speak out again.
Her teacher leaned forward beside her, working as hard as Marise, although she did not touch the keys. Four years of incessant work together had made them almost like one mind. From time to time, they wiped the perspiration away from their foreheads with a hasty pass of their handkerchiefs, Mlle. Hasparren's gesture as hurried as Marise's.