When he had finished, Cintras asked: "If that is Brahms, why then he has solved the secret of the age's end. He has written the song of humanity absorbed in the slime of a dying planet."
"Very morbid, very perverse in rhythms, I should say," broke in Berkeley; they all shivered. Merville arose, his face glum and drawn, and brought whiskey and glasses.
Cintras was the first to speak:
"Hodson, you are a very young fellow and I wish to give you good advice. Yours to me was better than you supposed. Now don't you ever bother with art, music or artistic prose. Just marry a nice girl who goes to comic operas. You stick to her and avoid Balzac. He is too strong meat for you—" "Yes, but he's great; I read him!" "And no more understand him than you do Chopin. Because he is great he is readable, but his secret is the secret of the sphinx; it may only be unravelled by a few strong souls. So go your road and be happy in your plush way, read your historical hog-wash, and believe me when I swear that the most miserable men are those who have caught a glimpse of the eternal beauty of art, who pursue her ideal face, who have the vision but not the voice. I once wrote a little prose poem about this desire of beauty; I will see if I can remember it for you."
"Go ahead, old man; I'll stand anything to-day," sang out Hodson.
"Here it is:" and Cintras recited his legend of
THE RECURRING STAIRCASE
I first saw her on the Recurring Staircase. I had turned sharply the angle of the hall and placed my foot upon the bottom step and then I saw her. She was motionless; her back I saw, and O! the grace of her neck and the glory of her arrested attitude. I feared to move, but some portent, silent, inflexibly eloquent, haled me to the staircase. That was years ago. I called to her, strange calls, beautiful sounding names; I besought her to bend her head, to make some sign to my signals of urgency; but her glance was aloft, where, illumined by the scarlet music of a setting sun, I saw in a rich, heavy mullioned embrazure, multi-colored glass shot through with drunken despairing daylight. Again I prayed my Lady of the Recurring Staircase to give me hope by a single dropped glance. At last I conjured her in Love's fatal name, and she moved languorously up the steep slope of stairs. As if the spell had been thwarted, I followed the melodious adagio of her footsteps. That was many years ago. She never mounted to the heavy mullioned embrazure with the multi-colored glass shot through with drunken, despairing daylight. I never touched the hand of the Lady of the Recurring Staircase; for the stairs were endless and I stood ever upon the bottom step; and the others below slipped into eternity; and all this was many years ago. I never have seen the glorious glance of My Lady on the Recurring Staircase.
They all applauded, Hodson violently. "I say, old chap, what would you have gained by overtaking the lady?" Cintras sniffed; Berkeley laughingly remarked that the staircase reminded him of the sort you see at a harvest with a horse on the treadmill.
"Don't, fellows!" begged Merville. "Cintras is giving one ideas to-day for a symphonic poem. Go on, Cintras, with more, but in a different vein. Something in the classical style."