Whom the Gods Destroyed

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

"Come, come," he said. "We'll help you. Come, be a man! You stay here with us, and we'll take care of you. Such a gift as yours shall not go for nothing. Come over to the hotel, and I'll get you a bed."

The man staggered up. He was much older than I had thought. There were deep, disagreeable lines in his face. There was a coarseness, too—but, oh, that "Spring Song"! Now, how can that be? My brother-in-law says—but this is not his story. The man got onto the seat somehow.

"You're a decent fellow," he said. "When I've done playing, you go out. Right straight out. D'ye hear? I'll come see you to-morrow morning."

Then he shut his eyes and felt for the keys, and played the Chopin Berceuse. And it is an actual fact that I wanted to die then. Not suddenly—but just to be rocked into rest, rocked into rest, and not wake up any more. It was the purest, sweetest, most inexpressibly touching thing I ever heard. I felt so young—so trustful, somehow. I knew that no harm would come. And then it sang itself to sleep, and we went away and left him, with his head resting on his hands that still pressed the keys. And we never spoke. I think the girl came out with us, but I'm not sure.

At the door the Nice Boy gulped, and said in a queer, shaky voice, "I'm not nearly good enough to have sat by you—I know that—you seem so far away—but I want to tell you." And I said that he was much better than I—that none of us were good—that I thought it would be all right in the end—that after all it was being managed better than we could arrange it—that perhaps heaven was more like what we used to think than what we think now. There is no knowing what we might have said if my brother-in-law had not come down to see where I was. And then I went to sleep like a baby.

III

I should like to end the story here. I should like to leave him bowed over the keys and remember only the most exquisite experience of my life in connection with him. But there is the rest of the tale, and it really needs telling.

I didn't see the end. The Nice Boy and my brother-in-law saw that, and I only know as much as they will tell me. The Nice Boy went over and got him the next morning. He said his name was Decker. He said that he had spent the night in the solemnest watching and praying, and he had held the bottle in his hands and never touched a drop of it. They gave him a bath and clothes, and fed him steadily for two days. He grew fat before our eyes. He looked nicer, more respectable, but more commonplace. He refused to touch the piano, because it gave him such a craving for drink.

He hated to talk about himself. But he let slip occasional remarks about London and Paris and Vienna and Leipsic that took away one's breath. He must have known strange people. Once he told me a little story about Clara Schumann that implied more than acquaintance, and he quoted Liszt constantly. He was an American beyond a doubt, we thought. He spoke vaguely of a secret that even Liszt had missed. I guessed it was connected with that wonderful singing quality that made the instrument a human voice under his fingers. When I asked him about it he laughed.

"You wait," he said confidently. "You just wait. I'll show you people something to make you open your eyes. I know. You're a good audience, you and your friend. You make a good air to play in. You just wait."