"Potztausend—no! I hear what you say! You speak of musicians and swine in the same breath. It is true. You ought to know, who wave the baton over them year in and year out. They rise like a balloon and then they fall—!"
He dropped his hands on the table with an expressive gesture. "They give out through the senses; they take in the same way." He lifted the glass, staring into it again: "But it is not through pleasure, not pleasure, Ritter, never pleasure, that their senses are developed, and they learn to feel, and give back what they have felt. They think it is pleasure, and they fall into the error, and their art dies within them sooner or later. It is like some fell thing clutching at their feet, and when they try to rise, it seizes them and drags them back, and they sink finally—they sink!"
The Kapellmeister leaned forward on the table, scanning the young face opposite him: "A year ago, Velasco, your chin was round and full; from the look of your mouth one could tell that you had lived and enjoyed. You were like the Faun, happy and careless, and your art was to you like a plaything. You cared only for your Stradivarius, and when you were not playing, you were nothing, not even a man. All your genius was concentrated there in your brows where the music lies hidden. Your virility was in your tones, and your strength in your fingers. What has come over you?"
"Am I changed?" said Velasco. His throat contracted. He held the glass to his lips, but he did not drink.
The Kapellmeister gazed at him strangely: "Yes, you are changed. In one year you have grown ten. What it is I cannot tell, but the look of your face is different. The mouth has grown rugged and harsh; there are lines under your eyes, and your lips are firm, not full. It is as if a storm had burst on a young birch, and torn it from its bank amid the grass and the heather, and an oak had grown up in its place, brought into life by the wind and the gale."
Velasco tossed off the Moselle and laughed bitterly: "I have done with pleasure," he said, "I have lived and I know life; that is all. There is nothing in it but work and music."
"Tell me, Velasco," said the Kapellmeister slowly, "Don't be offended if I ask, or think that I am trying to pry into your affairs. When you were rehearsing this morning it occurred to me.—There was something new in the quality of your tone. Before, you were a virtuoso; your technique was something to gaze at and harken to, and there was no technique like it in Europe; now—"
"Well—now?" cried Velasco, "Was I clumsy this morning? Was anything the matter? Potztausend!—why didn't you tell me?"
His eyes gleamed suddenly under his brows and he twirled his fingers, toying with them nervously. "Gott—Kapellmeister! Why didn't you tell me at once?"
"Now—" said the Kapellmeister: He looked up at the Bierfass, hanging by its chains, and his gaze wandered slowly over the legends on the wall, the gargoyles dripping; the mugs with their quaint tops and their handles twisted, the roof in its octagonal vaults, smoky, begrimed; and then back again to the table, and the flask before Velasco, yellow and slanting.