Frail little creature! She appeared, indeed, like a spirit of some other world. Her every nerve had vibrated in sympathy, and Franz could hardly help thinking, as he looked at her, that, soundless to human ears, there played about her ceaseless strains of melody. Music seemed to be the vitality that gave her life, the only nourishment that fed her soul.
When she first came to him for instruction, he quickly discovered that she possessed not the least power of execution, and then had taken no special notice of her further. Wrapped up in his art, teaching the children had never been a pleasure to him. He compelled himself to endure it as a means of subsistence.
The great object for which he worked was once to secure means enough to keep penury always from his door, and then give himself up unreservedly to this art which he loved better than his life. So he took no particular interest in any of his scholars, and it was only when he saw how eagerly the little Alice drank in every sound, that gradually he began to observe the child more narrowly. As he had at first seen, she possessed no power of execution whatever. She could not even learn to read the notes, and she would probably never be able to play a single bar correctly. But he had noticed how keenly alive she was to harmony, how peculiarly sensitive to discord. It seemed as though her lessons were a constant pain. Yet she came eagerly, and often lingered when they were finished.
He had found her once, late in the day, when he had been playing dreamily to himself, sitting on the veranda near the window of his parlor, listening with a rapt attention, wholly unconscious of any thing but his music. Since that, when she came to take her lesson, he had always played for her, carelessly at first, but after a time with greater interest, until gradually he had given up altogether any effort to instruct her, and in its place each day played for her the oratorios and symphonies of the great composers. Then he had changed from the piano to his organ, and he had grown to wait nearly as anxiously for the hour to come round as the little girl herself.
By degrees the visits of the child became to him almost indispensable. He seemed to feel always a strange inspiration come upon him in her presence. Why, he did not know; but it was then that sometimes the wild tumult, the infinite longings of his soul struggled into expression. But, when the child went, he would find himself again dejected, and wholly unable even to recall the strains which seemed to have died at the very moment of their birth.
Franz stood, still watching her motionless form. The sobs, quivering through her sleep, had one by one exhausted themselves, and left her face strangely peaceful to look upon.
“She is mine,” he muttered. “I will never part with her. She is my spirit of sound!”
Suddenly he heard the grating noise of footsteps on the graveled walk. Turning quickly, he drew the curtain over the window to shield the sleeper from the damp night-air. Then he went softly out and closed the door after him, wrapped once more in his severe reserve, and with the old stern expression upon his features. His brows knit themselves into a frown, and his lips curled for a moment with a smile of contempt when he recognized the figure coming into the hall.
“Ha! Erckman, good-evening,” said the man, in a loud and boisterous tone, which seemed to dissipate all the serenity of the night in its pompous swell.
“Good-evening.”