Over the Plum Pudding

by John Kendrick Bangs

Hans did as he said, and, despite their wisdom, the three musicians were as much in a flutter as the rest of the city. To play before the King was an unexpected honor, although Heinrich Flatz affected to treat it as quite an ordinary thing.

"He is a very fair judge of music," said Flatz, patronizingly, "for a King. I think that, after all, we'd better do our best."

"Yes," said Von Kärlingtongs, "you are right, as usual, though I will say right here that, in doing my best, I am actuated as much by my loyalty to my art as by any other motive. I always do my best."

"And I also," put in Teutonstring. "Now the question that arises is what is our best?"

"That is indeed the question," said Herr Flatz. "I, having already had the honor to play before his Majesty, am perhaps better fitted than either of you to say what he likes. When I was so distinguished I played Djorski's Symphony in B Minor. Therefore I contend that that is what we should play. His Majesty remarked that he had never heard anything like it before. He would doubtless like to hear it again. Therefore I say that is the thing for us to play."

"Ordinarily," said Teutonstring, "I can agree with Herr Flatz, but this time I cannot. I am at my best in Darmstadter's Oratorio. There can be no question about it that the bass-viol is at its highest, most ennobling point in that composition, which is why I say let us have the Oratorio. The King, having heard the Symphony in B Minor, would naturally rather hear something else. The Symphony, no doubt, would awaken pleasant memories, but the Oratorio would give him something new to remember in the future."

"There is much in what you say, Herr Teutonstring," put in Von Kärlingtongs. "There is also much in what my dear friend Flatz says; but it seems to me that there is more in what I have to say than in the combined suggestions of both of you. The Symphony in B Minor is excellent, the Oratorio is quite as excellent, but neither of them comes up to Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata, which, when I play it, makes me feel as though the whole world lay at my feet—as if I were the King of all creation. Now I am a man; the King is a man; we are both men. It is but natural to suppose that if this Sonata makes me, a man, feel like the King of all creation, it will also make that other man, the King, feel the same way. What is our object in playing before the King? To please him. How can we best please him? Simply by making him feel that he is the King of all creation. Perfectly simple, my dear Flatz. Plain as a pikestaff, Teutonstring. Therefore let us play Dboriak's Moonlight Sonata."

It was thus that the three musicians, who had always hitherto agreed, came to have the first difference of their lives, and what made it seem worse than all was that this difference occurred at a time which seemed to them in their secret hearts to be the greatest event of their lives. Perhaps it was the very importance of this event that made each of them firm in his belief that he was right and the others wrong. Neither would yield to the others, and an hour before the arrival of the royal train found Flatz determined to play the Symphony, Teutonstring determined to play the Oratorio, and Von Kärlingtongs equally immovable in his determination to play the Moonlight Sonata, and nothing else. They labored with one another in vain. Doctor Teutonstring tried to win over Herr Flatz, saying that if together they should play the Oratorio they could let Von Kärlingtongs render the Sonata without much harm, since the bass-viol and 'cello together could drown the sounds of the violin. Herr Flatz would agree to a combination of two against one only in case the Symphony were selected, and when the King arrived no change whatsoever had been made in the determination of the musicians. Ruin stared them in the face, but each preferred ruin to a base surrender of what he thought to be for the best.

Of course, as the King alighted from the train the people cheered, and, when the Mayor rose to greet him with the speech he had to make, they cheered again, but these cheers were as nothing to those which greeted the appearance of the musicians. Many nations had kings; all cities had mayors; what city had such an orchestra? No wonder they cheered.

And then the serenade began.