It was indeed a cry of sorrow, the wail of a dying nation, and as Amalia played and sang she became oblivious of all else a being inspired by lofty emotion, while the two men sat in silence, wondering and fascinated. The mother’s eyes glowed upon her out of the obscurity of her corner, and her voice alone broke the silence.
“I have heard my Paul in the night of the desert where he made that music, I have heard him so play and sing it, that it would seem the stars must fall down out of the heavens with sorrow for it.”
Amalia smiled and caught up her violin again. “We will have no more of this sad music this night. I will sing the wild song of the Ukraine, most beautiful of all our country, alas, ours no more––Like that other, the music is my father’s, but the poem is written by a son of the Ukraine––Zaliski.”
A melody clear and sweet dominated, mounting to a note of triumph. Slender and tall she stood in the middle of the room. The firelight played on the folds of her gown, bringing out its color in brilliant flashes. She seemed to Harry, with her rich complexion and glowing eyes, absorbed thus in her music, a type of human splendor, vigorous, vivid, adorable. Mostly in Polish, but sometimes in English, she again half sang, half chanted, now playing with the voice, and again dropping to accompaniment only, while they 314 listened, the mother in the shadows, Larry gazing in the fire, and Harry upon her.
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“Me also has my mother, the Ukraine, Me her son Cradled on her bosom, The enchantress.” |
She ceased, and with a sigh dropped at her mother’s feet and rested her head on her mother’s knee.
“Tell us now, mamma, a poem. It is time we finish now our fête with one good, long poem from you.”
“You will understand me?” Madam Manovska turned to Harry. “You do well understand what once you have heard––” She always spoke slowly and with difficulty when she undertook English, and now she continued speaking rapidly to Amalia in her own tongue, and her daughter explained.
“Mamma says she will tell you a poem composed by a great poet, French, who is now, for patriotism to his country, in exile. His name is Victor Hugo. You have surely heard of him? Yes. She says she will repeat this which she have by head, and because that it is not familiar to you she asks will I tell it in English––if you so desire?”
Again Madam Manovska addressed her daughter, and Amalia said: “She thinks this high mountain and the plain below, and that we are exile from our own land, makes her think of this; only that the conscience has never for her brought terror, like for Cain, but only to those who have so long persecuted my father with imprisonment, and drive him so far to terrible places. She thinks they must always, with never stopping, see the ‘Eye’ that regards forever. This also must Victor Hugo know well, since for his country 315 he also is driven in exile––and can see the terrible ‘Eye’ go to punish his enemies.”