No, I am a small woman in front of a big thing. One of the biggest, genius. And the force of it, relentless as nature, made me what I am. Paul. Oh, Vera, when I think of his music, tempestuous as the sea, healing as spring.... And now where is it? He had what all the world wants most, flight, and the world stalled him in its own mud. You saw it.... That's why I shall stay here. It's the only place with his atmosphere. All these things are he. I face them here in silence, and I bare my breast to the arrow. Here I am, the only one who knows Paul's music in its possibility. To the rest, it is a heap of stones by the roadside. The architect is dead.
Vera
But didn't he ever ... why didn't he...?
Jean
You ask it, of course. You have the right. Sometimes I ask it, too, why Paul never succeeded. While we were struggling along, the things that held him back seemed only details. Only now do I see them as a whole.
In the first place, Paul never aimed directly at success. He was all-round. If it had been merely a question of exploiting his talent, sticking to the one idea day in, day out, never letting an opportunity slip by of meeting the right people and getting to the right places ... that would have been easy. He had tremendous energy. I used to grudge his interest in other things. I hated to see him lose the chances and let them be snapped up by littler men. He seemed to waste himself, right and left, prodigally. But it wasn't that, it wasn't waste. It was all as much a part of him as his music. He detested the stupidity of wealth and poverty, he rebelled against laws that aren't laws, but only interests enforced by authority, he fought against the sheer deadness of prejudice. How he hated all that! And why not? You see, Vera, he was sensitive to it not only as a thinker, but as a musician, too. It was all a part of the discord, and what I used to think his wasting himself was really an effort to create a larger harmony. He used to say that the beauty of music is only the image of beauty in life, and that life must come first. He couldn't endure discords anywhere. Paul despised the musicians who scream at a flatted f but hunger for the flesh pots after the performance. No, he was never that. And people resented it. The very people who ought to have understood.
Vera
But he didn't neglect his music, that is...?
Jean
No. He made enormous efforts to get his violin before the public. And several times he was "discovered" by men who could have made him famous overnight. We all believe that genius will out, despite anything, but it doesn't always. Musicians respected him, but they were afraid of him, too. He criticized them for their shortcomings in other things, just as he criticized others for their shortcomings in art. He wouldn't accept any talent, no matter how fine, if it went with anything small or destructive. You can imagine the china shops he left in fragments! Just think! Once in Berlin it was all arranged for him to have a recital—he was working furiously on his program and I was dancing on air—when just at the last moment he heard the director make some light remark or other about women. Paul was raging! He threw the words back in the fellow's teeth, and made him apologize, but there we were. They called off the recital, naturally. And I couldn't blame Paul. I was just beginning to understand. Another time ... no, he never had luck. Paul had bad luck. I often think of the Greek tragedies.