A strange transparency took the place of bloom upon that face of youth, as if from temperament too tender, or blood too rarefied; but the hair betrayed a wondrous strength, clustering in dark curls of excessive richness. The pointed fingers were pale, but they grasped the time-stick with an energy like naked nerve.
But not until the violins woke up, announcing the subject of the allegro, did I feel fully conscious of that countenance absolved from its repose of perfection by an excitement itself divine.
It would exhaust thought no less than words to describe the aspect of music, thus revealed, thus presented. I was a little child then, my brain was unused to strong sensation, and I can only say I remembered not how he looked after all was over. The intense impression annihilated itself, as a white, dazzling fire struck from a smith's anvil dies without ashy sign. I have since learned to discover, to adore, every express lineament of that matchless face; but then I was lost in gazing, in a spiritual, ebbless excitement,—then I was conscious of the composition that he had made one with himself, that became one with him.
The fire with which he led, the energy, the speed, could only have been communicated to an English orchestra by such accurate force. The perfection with which the conductor was endued must surely have passed electrically into every player,—there fell not a note to the ground. Such precision was wellnigh oppressive; one felt some hand must drop.
From beginning to end of the allegro not a disturbing sound arose throughout the hall; but on the closing chord of the overture there burst one deep toll of wonderful applause. I can only call it a "toll;" it was simultaneous. The conductor looked over his shoulder, and slightly shook his head. It was enough, and silence reigned as the heavenly sympathy of the recitative trembled from the strings surcharged with fire. Here it was as if he whispered "Hush!" for the sobbing staccato of the accompaniment I never heard so low,—it was silvery, almost awful. The bâton stirred languidly, as the stem of a wind-swept lily, in those pointed fingers.
Nor would he suffer any violence to be done to the solemn brightness of the aria. It was not until we all arose that he raised his arm, and impetuously, almost imperiously, fixed upon us his eyes. He glanced not a moment at the score, he never turned a leaf, but he urged the time majestically, and his rapturous beauty brightened as the voices firmly, safely, swelled over the sustaining chords, launched in glory upon those waves of sound.
I almost forgot the festival. I am not certain that I remember who I was, or where I was, but I seemed to be singing at every pore. I seemed pouring out my life instead of my voice; but the feeling I had of being irresistibly borne along was so transporting that I can conceive of nothing else like it, until after death.
CHAPTER IX.
The chorus, I learned afterwards, was never recalled, so proudly true, so perfect, so flexible; but it was not only not difficult to keep in, it was impossible to get out. So every one said among my choral contemporaries afterwards.