When they entered the concert-hall, the orchestra had already begun the programme of the day with Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony. The house was crowded to excess; numbers of people were standing, apparently willing to endure a whole afternoon's fatigue, rather than miss hearing the Orpheus of Andalusia,—the "Endymion out of Spain," as one of our latest and best poets has aptly called him. Only a languidly tolerant interest was shown in the orchestral performance,—the "Italian" Symphony is not a really great or suggestive work, and this is probably the reason why it so often fails to arouse popular enthusiasm. For, be it understood by the critical elect, that the heart-whole appreciation of the million is by no means so "vulgar" as it is frequently considered,—it is the impulsive response of those who, not being bound hand and foot by any special fetters of thought or prejudice, express what they instinctively FEEL to be true. You cannot force these "vulgar," by any amount of "societies," to adopt Browning as a household god,—but they will appropriate Shakespeare, and glory in him, too, without any one's compulsion. If authors, painters, and musicians would probe more earnestly than they do to the core of this INSTINCTIVE HIGHER ASPIRATION OF PEOPLES, it would be all the better for their future fame. For each human unit in a nation has its great, as well as base passions,—and it is the clear duty of all the votaries of art to appeal to and support the noblest side of nature only—moreover, to do so with a simple, unforced, yet graphic eloquence of meaning that can be grasped equally and at once by both the humble and exalted.
"It is not in the least Italian"—said Heliobas, alluding to the Symphony, when it was concluded, and the buzz of conversation surged through the hall like the noise that might be made by thousands of swarming bees,—"There is not a breath of Italian air or a glimpse of Italian light about it. The dreamy warmth of the South,—the radiant color that lies all day and all night on the lakes and mountains of Dante's land,—the fragrance of flowers—the snatches of peasants' and fishermen's songs—the tunefulness of nightingales in the moonlight,—the tinkle of passing mandolins,—all these things should be hinted at in an 'Italian' Symphony—and all these are lacking. Mendelssohn tried to do what was not in him,—I do not believe the half-phlegmatic, half-philosophical nature of a German could ever understand the impetuously passionate soul of Italy."
As he spoke, a fair girl, with gray eyes that were almost black, glanced round at him inquiringly,—a faint blush flitted over her cheeks, and she seemed about to speak, but, as though restrained by timidity, she looked away again and said nothing. Heliobas smiled.
"That pretty child is Italian," he whispered to Alwyn. "Patriotism sparkled in those bright eyes of hers—love for the land of lilies, from which she is at present one transplanted!"
Alwyn smiled also, assentingly, and thought how gracious, kindly, and gentle were the look and voice of the speaker. He found it difficult to realize that this man, who now sat beside him in the stalls of a fashionable London concert-room, was precisely the same one who, clad in the long flowing white robes of his Order, had stood before the Altar in the chapel at Dariel, a stately embodiment of evangelical authority, intoning the Seven Glorias! It seemed strange, and yet not strange, for Heliobas was a personage who might be imagined anywhere,—by the bedside of a dying child, among the parliaments of the learned, in the most brilliant social assemblies, at the head of a church,—anything he chose to do would equally become him, inasmuch as it was utterly impossible to depict him engaged in otherwise than good and noble deeds. At that moment a tumultuous clamor of applause broke out on all sides,—applause that was joined in by the members of the orchestra as well as the audience,—a figure emerged from a side door on the left and ascended the platform—a slight, agile creature, with rough, dark hair and eager, passionate eyes—no other than the hero of the occasion, Sarasate himself. Sarasate e il suo Violino!—there they were, the two companions; master and servant—king and subject. The one, a lithe, active looking man of handsome, somewhat serious countenance and absorbed expression,—the other, a mere frame of wood with four strings deftly knotted across it, in which cunningly contrived little bit of mechanism was imprisoned the intangible, yet living Spirit of Sound. A miracle in its way!—that out of such common and even vile materials as wood, catgut, and horsehair, the divinest music can be drawn forth by the hand of the master who knows how to use these rough implements! Suggestive, too, is it not, my friends?—for if man can by his own poor skill and limited intelligence so invoke spiritual melody by material means,—shall not God contrive some wondrous tunefulness for Himself even out of our common earthly discord? …. Hush!—A sound sweet and far as the chime of angelic bells in some vast sky-tower, rang clearly through the hall over the heads of the now hushed and attentive audience—and Alwyn, hearing the penetrating silveriness of those first notes that fell from Sarasate's bow, gave a quick sigh of amazement and ecstasy,—such marvellous purity of tone was intoxicating to his senses, and set his nerves quivering for sheer delight in sympathetic tune. He glanced at the programme,—"Concerto—Beethoven"—and swift as a flash there came to his mind some lines he had lately read and learned to love:
"It was the Kaiser of the Land of Song,
The giant singer who did storm the gates
Of Heaven and Hell—a man to whom the Fates
Were fierce as furies,—and who suffered wrong,
And ached and bore it, and was brave and strong
And grand as ocean when its rage abates."
Beethoven! … Musical fullness of divine light! how the glorious nightingale notes of his unworded poesy came dropping through the air like pearls, rolling off the magic wand of the Violin Wizard, whose delicate dark face, now slightly flushed with the glow of inspiration, seemed to reflect by its very expression the various phases of the mighty composer's thought! Alwyn half closed his eyes and listened entranced, allowing his soul to drift like an oarless boat on the sweeping waves of the music's will. He was under the supreme sway of two Emperors of Art,—Beethoven and Sarasate,—and he was content to follow such leaders through whatever sweet tangles and tall growths of melody they might devise for his wandering. At one mad passage of dancing semitones he started,—it was as though a sudden wind, dreaming an enraged dream, had leaped up to shake tall trees to and fro,—and the Pass of Dariel, with its frozen mountain-peaks, its tottering pines, and howling hurricanes, loomed back upon his imagination as he had seen it first on the night he had arrived at the Monastery—but soon these wild notes sank and slept again in the dulcet harmony of an Adagio softer than a lover's song at midnight. Many strange suggestions began to glimmer ghost-like through this same Adagio,—the fair, dead face of Niphrata flitted past him, as a wandering moonbeam flits athwart a cloud,—then came flashing reflections of light and color,—the bewildering dazzlement of Lysia's beauty shone before the eyes of his memory with a blinding lustre as of flame, . . the phantasmagoria of the city of Al-Kyris seemed to float in the air like a faintly discovered mirage ascending from the sea,—again he saw its picturesque streets, its domes and bell-towers, its courts and gardens.. again he heard the dreamy melody of the dance that had followed the death of Nir-jalis, and saw the cruel Lysia's wondrous garden lying white in the radiance of the moon; anon he beheld the great Square, with its fallen Obelisk and the prostrate, lifeless form of the Prophet Khosrul.. and… Oh, most sad and dear remembrance of all! … the cherished Shadow of Himself, the brilliant, the joyous Sah-luma appeared to beckon him from the other side of some vast gulf of mist and darkness, with a smile that was sorrowful, yet persuasive; a smile that seemed to say—"O friend, why hast thou left me as though I were a dead thing and unworthy of regard?—Lo, I have never died, —I am here, an abandoned part of THEE, ready to become thine inseparable comrade once more if thou make but the slightest sign!"—Then it seemed as though voices whispered in his ear—"Sah-luma! beloved Sah-luma!"—and "Theos! Theos, my beloved!"—till, moved by a vague tremor of anxiety, he lifted his drooping eyelids and gazed full in a sort of half-incredulous, half-reproachful amaze at the musical necromancer who had conjured up all these apparitions,—what did this wonderful Sarasate know of his Past?
Nothing, indeed,—he had ceased, and was gravely bowing to the audience in response to the thunder of applause, that, like a sudden whirlwind, seemed to shake the building. But he had not quite finished his incantations,—the last part of the Concerto was yet to come,—and as soon as the hubbub of excitement had calmed down, he dashed into it with the delicious speed and joy of a lark soaring into the springtide air. And now on all sides what clear showers and sparkling coruscations of melody!—what a broad, blue sky above!—what a fair, green earth below!—how warm and odorous this radiating space, made resonant with the ring of sweet bird-harmonies!—wild thrills of ecstasy and lover-like tenderness—snatches of song caught up from the flower-filled meadows and set to float in echoing liberty through the azure dome of heaven!—and in all and above all, the light and heat and lustre of the unclouded sun!—Here there was no dreaming possible, . . nothing but glad life, glad youth, glad love! With an ambrosial rush of tune, like the lark descending, the dancing bow cast forth the final chord from the violin as though it were a diamond flung from the hand of a king, a flawless jewel of pure sound,—and the Minstrel monarch of Andalusia, serenely saluting the now wildly enthusiastic audience, left the platform. But he was not allowed to escape so soon,—again and again, and yet again, the enormous crowd summoned him before them, for the mere satisfaction of looking at his slight figure, his dark, poetic face, and soft, half-passionate, half-melancholy eyes, as though anxious to convince themselves that he was indeed human, and not a supernatural being, as his marvellous genius seemed to indicate. When at last he had retired for a breathing-while, Heliobas turned to Alwyn with the question:
"What do you think of him?"
"Think of him!" echoed Alwyn—"Why, what CAN one think,—what CAN one say of such an artist!—He is like a grand sunrise,—baffling all description and all criticism!"