"No!" replied the other, "you should not undertake such absorbing work as that. That would be treason to your muse. I was thinking of a comfortable place in an orchestra that makes no big flourishes and does not rehearse a great deal."
"Well!" muttered Gesa.
"I made the acquaintance lately at the Hotel de Nancy, of a clown, a splendid fellow, who works in a circus on the Boulevard Rochechonart. Not a first-class circus, but a very respectable circus for all that. I told the clown about you. They just happen to need a first violin and"--
Gesa sprang hastily up and left the room. From that moment he never spoke to the Tenor again.
* * * * *
His lassitude and weakness increased with every day. The blood crept in his veins like cold lead--there was always a mist before his eyes, and in his ears a sound like the flapping of an exhausted butterfly. The miserable nourishment which was all he could afford himself, did not suffice to keep him up any longer, he could not leave his room, then he took to his bed.
Because he was universally liked his fellow lodgers did him all the kindnesses they could, and even the hostess herself brought him food, made his bed, and borrowed newspapers for him. He thanked them all with the same timid smile, the same far-off look, and spent nearly the whole day in a sad, drowsy condition, falling from one light slumber into another.
But one afternoon it seemed to him as if a soft hand passed tenderly over his forehead. He opened his eyes. Above him bent a handsome old face, decently framed in grey hair, and a voice that sounded from the far distance murmured "Gesa!" He roused himself. "Gesa!" she cried again. It was his mother!
Yes, his mother, whom he had not seen for nearly five and twenty years. She had married the acrobat Fernando. The circus on the Boulevard Rochechonart belonged to them--they were prosperous. The light-minded woman was not so bad as one might have thought her. She had kept herself secretly informed about Gesa for a long time after leaving him, and convinced herself that he was well cared for and "among quality people," as she said, and this latter circumstance had deprived her of courage to approach him. But she had often rejoiced at the sight of him from a distance. Then, slowly he disappeared from her horizon. And now the Tenor, Monsieur Augusti, whose acquaintance she had lately made, after talking a great deal of his friend, had only yesterday spoken his name. All this Margaretha imparted to her son, weeping the while, straightening his miserable pillow and smoothed the bed clothes. He suffered it all quietly, murmuring sometimes a grateful word, and observing her, half stupefied, half astray. He could not realize this sudden meeting.
But when she, embarrassed by his passiveness, went on--"I heard you play, years ago,--long years ago,--at Nice. Oh! I was proud of you! And I bought your piece, the one where your picture is on the cover:--such a handsome picture!"--then the violinist buried his face in the pillow and groaned like a dying man. His anguish overcame the shyness which held his mother back--"Poor boy!" she whispered, caressingly, stroking the rough grey hair of the broken man, as in times long past she had smoothed the child's soft locks.