“Then what think you of this?” and catching up the instrument, the musician ran over the strings several times, bringing forth snatches of melody so exquisite that Heinrich himself started; but melody broken and incoherent, mingling the wildest and most touching harmony with what was frequently commonplace and harsh.
“Ah! ’tis not that yet! I cannot catch it!” and throwing down the instrument with a gesture of despair, the disappointed artist buried his face in his hands.
“Come, do not take it so,” cried the friend; ’twill come to you to-night! Who thinks, ha! of work in the morning? and you, Mara, of all others, whose inspiration is always in the bottom of your glass!”
“True, true, Heinrich! and we will dive for it, eh!” and rising, the artist went to a closet and brought out a couple of flasks and two tumblers. “Here’s what will drive away melancholy.” He poured out the wine and they pledged each other.
“Come, I have a thought,” cried the violoncellist. “It was at Rosenthal, in my dream, that I heard the witch music. I will go there to-day, with my good fellow, and perhaps it will come back to me. I cannot compose in this house, but in the green vale and under the blue sky—ah, Heinrich!”
“I suppose Madame Mara favors you with an accompaniment sometimes—ha! ha!” cried the friend, laughing.
Mara held up his finger significantly and shook his head. “The public are enchanted with Gertrude’s singing, but ’tis anything rather than adagio with me! Ah, mine is a sad lot! And what think you? she will give me no more furniture to my room, though I have had to part with piece after piece to pay for our suppers, Heinrich! You see to what I am reduced! but two chairs and a bench and table, and my fellow here,” hugging his instrument, “which I will die rather than pawn. And Madame Mara rides in her carriage and dresses like a queen at the concerts, and wins all hearts, and gives me nothing of all the money she has paid her! It all goes to the bank, laid up for her luxury, while I have to sell the furniture for this”—pointing to the wine. “But I’ll outwit her. I have a jewelled brooch she thinks lost, and mean to sell it to-morrow; ’twill keep us in good liquor for a month, and then I know where to find more of the same plunder!”
The degraded artist chuckled over the idea of robbing his wife; his friend laughed with him, but observed that were he blessed with a wife who could make money, he would know how to obtain it without stratagem.
“Oh, as to that, mon ami, remember her foster-father—Hiller, the music director; ’tis he encourages her obstinacy, and I should not like to break with him altogether. As to Gertrude, she thinks she acts for my good. Did she not quarrel for my sake with the King at Berlin? Did she not give up her appointment, worth two thousand a year, at the court of Frederick the Great, because the King and I could not pull together? Then, after all, I am not fit, as she says, to be my own master; and I would rather submit to her than the monarch who shut me up three months, or the corporal who thrashed me! ’Sdeath! that corporal with his stout cane! it makes me foam to think of it! But I’ll pay him back some day or other.” And with hand already tremulous from drunkenness, Mara filled and emptied his glass again, signing to his companion to do the same, with a ludicrous expression of hilarious hospitality.
At this moment the clock struck, and a door opened opposite the one leading into the street. A lady of fine figure, and elegantly dressed in a riding habit, came into the room. She stopped as if about to speak, but seeing the wine on the table and the condition of both the tipplers, she cast on them a look of profound and withering contempt, and passed on to the outer door without saying a word.