"I will play--only--only--that I may not shame you!" murmured Gesa.
The boy was deathly pale, and trembled all over as he raised his violin, his eyes lighted up--and then hid themselves behind their dark lashes.
A rain of fire fell before his vision, a whirl of emotion filled his breast, wild passionate melodies sounded in his ears. Had he dreamed them, or had a complaining autumn storm driven them hither from the land of his father? Were they echoes of the songs his mother had listened to from her lover, and later had hushed her child to sleep with them, as she rocked him on the threshold of the house in the shabby little street, where the sad Saviour looked hopelessly down from the Crucifix on the grey church wall? Who knows! His violin sang and sobbed as only a Hungarian gipsy-violin can; harsh modulations, piercing melodies, a mad tempest of passion,--then one last burst of wild, reckless hilarity--and he broke off, breathless, and gazing fixedly before him. He knew he had done his best. His ears listened greedily. If they expected a storm of applause as at his public debut, they were disappointed. Only a little hum, like the dry leaves that an east wind is rustling, buzzed through the room, and as if afar off he heard the words "Charmant, magnifique, original, tsigane"--His head sank, a black cloud floated before his eyes. De Sterny came up and clapped him on the shoulder. "Bravo! Bravo!" he cried, "we are rehabilitated!" and turning to the company with a triumphant smile,
"Now did I exaggerate?"
But Gesa listened no longer for the answer of the salon. He pressed de Sterny's hand to his hot lips, and burst into tears. The virtuoso was his heaven, his God. "Mais voyons! grand enfant!" said his patron soothingly. And the "world" was enchanted, even more of course by the generosity of the great pianist than by the talent of his protégé!
* * * * *
"What is a chimera?" asked the little Gipsy of his great friend one day.
It was in the forenoon. Gesa had been turning over the leaves of a French book which he did not understand, "Les Fleurs du Mal," by Baudelaire. De Sterny meanwhile had been writing letters. He wore a yellow dressing gown of Japanese silk, in which he looked like a large mullein. He yawned and stretched himself, looked pale and used up. That he had not slept regularly for fifteen years was very evident from his appearance.
"What is a chimera?" asked Gesa.
"A chimera--a chimera--it is a siren with wings," defined the virtuoso, turning round.