"It's impossible," said Krafft, and proceeded.
"BARMHERZIGER GOTT!—" The master's short neck reddened, and twisted in its collar.
"Give me music I care to play, and I'll show you how it should be done. I can make nothing of this," answered Krafft.
Schwarz strode up to the piano, and swept the volume from the rack; it fell with a crash on the keys and on Krafft's hands, and effectually hindered him from continuing.
What had gone before was as a summer shower to a deluge. With his arms stiffly knotted behind his back, Schwarz paced the floor with a tread that shook it. His steely blue eyes flashed with passion; the veins stood out on his forehead; his large, prominent mouth gaped above his tuft of beard; he struck ludicrous attitudes, pouring out, meanwhile, without stint—for he had soon passed from Krafft's particular case of insubordination to the general one—pouring out the savage anger and deep-felt injury that had accumulated in him. Finally, he invited the class to rise and leave him, there and then. For what, in God's name, were they waiting? Let them up and away, without more ado!
On receiving the volume of Beethoven on his fingers, Krafft straightened out the pages, and taking down his hat from its peg, left the room, with movements of a calculated coolness. But only a pupil of Bullow's might take such a liberty; the rest had to assist quietly at the painful scene. Maurice studied his finger nails, and Dove did not once remove his eyes from the leg of the piano. They, at least, knew from experience that, in time, the storm would pass; also that it sounded worse, than it actually was. But a new-comer, a stout Bavarian lad, with hair cut like Rubinstein's, who was present at the lesson for the first time, was pale and frightened, and sat drinking in every word.
Towards the end of the hour, when quiet was re-established, one's inclination was rather to escape from the room and be free, than to sit down to play something that demanded coolness and concentration. Dove, who was not sensitive to externals, came safely through the ordeal; but Maurice made a poor job of the trio in which he had hoped to excel. Schwarz did not even offer to turn the pages. This, Beyerlein, the new-comer, did, in a nervous desire to ingratiate himself; but he was still so flustered that, at a critical moment, he brought the music down on the keys. Schwarz said nothing; wrapped in the moody silence that invariably followed his outbursts, he hardly seemed aware that anyone was playing. After two movements of the trio, he signed to Beyerlein to take his turn, and proffered no comment on Maurice's work. Maurice would have hurried away, without a further word, had he not already learned the early date of his performance. He knew, too, that if the practical side of the affair—rehearsals with string players, and so on—was not satisfactorily arranged, he would be blamed for it. So he reminded Schwarz of the matter. From what ensued, it was plain that the master still bore him a grudge for absconding in summer. Schwarz glared coldly at him, as if unsure to what Maurice alluded; and when the latter had recalled the details of the case to his mind, he said rudely: "You went your way, Herr Guest. Now I go mine." He commenced to turn the leaves of his ponderous note-book, and after Maurice had stood for some few minutes, listening to Beyerlein trip and stumble through Mozart, he felt that, for this day at least, he could put up with no more, and left the class.
III.
Shaking all disagreeable impressions from him, he sped through the fading light of the September afternoon.