The Diva lowered her face, pressed a hand against her temples and swayed as if to fall. But her recovery was sudden. She smiled toward the sea of anxious faces and nodded to the conductor, who started his orchestra afresh. Then she sang the aria as never before.
XIV OVER SEAS
There was music in Cyrus. As a boy, however, he could never get it out. With no voice for singing his main relief was in whistling and humming and in drumming with his fingers. Which, of course, made him more or less of a nuisance at times. When he grew up his voice improved. Not enough to outshine the nightingales, but it served for domestic purposes. At church, for instance, he joined the congregation in the hymns. His voice, in speaking, was low, with a pleasant quality, and was more than satisfactory for ordinary human intercourse. But as a musical instrument it aroused no enthusiasm. His father had said, on one occasion: "The louder you sing, Cyrus, the less noise you make."
But music had always moved him, and in a singular way; much as many others are affected, perhaps, but more profoundly. It touched strange chords, deep within him. It inspired him, and seemed to bring a keener edge to his capacity for pain or pleasure; lifting him, at times, far away from himself, to a world where other people are not too real; where beauty and virtue, power, glory and justice are at one's own command. Music brought these things to Cyrus—also other things for which a young man's soul is thirsting.
One evening in May there was a service in the church in which the congregation—Cyrus included—had joined in the singing. After the service he walked home alone. As he entered his own grounds the music of the last hymn echoed in his brain. Still humming it, he stopped and looked up at the stars. The solemn stillness of the night brought memories of his father. And as he stood there, gazing at the stars, he felt in the night air itself an unfamiliar element; something that awakened within him emotions unrelated to his outward senses. There was no moon, but from countless stars came flickering beams—faint greetings from other worlds. He seemed alone in the Great Silence—alone in the universe itself; in closer communion with hidden things. From out the darkness, mingling with the silence, yet almost silence itself, there came to him a breath—a murmur. It was not the evening breeze among the branches of the maples. It was the gentlest music, but not the echoes in his brain of the evening hymn. No—it came from far away. It seemed personal—directed to himself. For a time he stood without moving, every faculty alert. Not with his ears did he listen, but with a deeper sense, as of one spirit striving for communion with another. At last the music, the voice, the indefinable melody died away, gently, into the silence of the night.
Patiently he waited. Then, after a time, when nothing came, he opened his eyes and lowered his face. In the continued silence about him he began to suspect that his own brain might have been deceiving him; that the message was from his own imagination. And was it a message? It had told him nothing. So far as he could divine it was a call—a prayer, but clearly to himself. Still wondering, he entered the house, did his customary little chores, then went upstairs to bed.
For a time he lay awake, thinking, but once asleep his sleep was sound. From this sleep, however, he was awakened by what seemed a whispered voice within the room. He sat up in his bed, and spoke.