At last the stage chairs were all filled by a crowd of twanging, booming, sawing, squeaking instrumentalists. Then the leader, a large man of military erectness, came down to the leader's desk and bowed, amidst thunderous applause. Then rapping sharply on his desk he brought orderly silence out of the tumult, and the concert began.
The music did not mean much to Rose during the first half-hour, for the splendor of the whole spectacle dominated the appeal of the instruments. Such music and such audiences were possible only in the largest cities, and that consideration moved her deeply. It seemed too good to be true that she sat here securely, ready to enjoy all that came. It had come to her, too, almost without effort, almost without deserving, she felt.
But there came at last a number on the programme which dimmed the splendor of the spectacle. The voice of Wagner came to her for the first time, and shook her and thrilled her and lifted her into wonderful regions where the green trees dripped golden moss, and the grasses were jeweled in very truth. Wistful young voices rose above the lazy lap of waves, sad with love and burdened with beauty which destroyed. Like a deep-purple cloud death came, slowly, resistlessly, closing down on those who sang, clasped in each other's arms.
They lay dead at last, and up through the purple cloud their spirits soared like gold and silver flame, woven together, and the harsh thunder of the gray sea died to a sullen boom.
When she rose to her feet the girl from the coulé staggered, and the brilliant, moving, murmuring house blurred into fluid color like a wheel of roses.
The real world was gone, the world of imagined things lay all about her. She felt the power to reach out her hand to take fame and fortune.
In that one reeling instant the life of the little coulé, the lonely, gentle old father, and the days of her youth—all her past—were pushed into immeasurable distance. The pulling of weeds in the corn, the driving of cattle to pasture were as the doings of ants in a dirt-heap.
A vast pity for herself sprang up in her brain. She wanted to do some gigantic thing which should enrich the human race. She felt the power to do this, too, and there was a wonderful look on her face as she turned to Isabel. She seemed to be listening to some inner sound throbbing away into silence, and then her comprehension of things at hand came back to her, and Isabel was speaking to her.
"Here's Mr. Mason coming to speak to us," interrupted Mr. Harvey.