“There's nothing more,” he said.
As he stepped from the door and stood irresolutely in the twilight of the street, he heard the voices of the men who had gathered in Keating's honor upraised in a joyous chorus.
“For he's a jolly good fellow,” they sang, “for he's a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny!”
LA LETTRE D'AMOUR
When Bardini, who led the Hungarian Band at the Savoy Restaurant, was promoted to play at the Casino at Trouville, his place was taken by the second violin. The second violin was a boy, and when he greeted his brother Tziganes and the habitues of the restaurant with an apologetic and deprecatory bow, he showed that he was fully conscious of the inadequacy of his years. The maitre d'hotel glided from table to table, busying himself in explanations.
“The boy's name is Edouard; he comes from Budapest,” he said. “The season is too late to make it worth the while of the management to engage a new chef d'orchestre. So this boy will play. He plays very good, but he is not like Bardini.”
He was not in the least like Bardini. In appearance, Bardini suggested a Roumanian gypsy or a Portuguese sailor; his skin was deeply tanned, his hair was plastered on his low forehead in thick, oily curls, and his body, through much rich living on the scraps that fell from the tables of Girot's and the Casino des Fleurs, was stout and gross. He was the typical leader of an orchestra condemned to entertain a noisy restaurant. His school of music was the school of Maxim's. To his skill with the violin he had added the arts of the head waiter, and he and the cook ran a race for popularity, he pampering to one taste, and the cook, with his sauces, pampering to another. When so commanded, his pride as an artist did not prevent him from breaking off in the middle of Schubert's Serenade to play Daisy Bell, nor was he above breaking it off on his own accord to salute the American patron, as he entered with the Belle of New York, or any one of the Gaiety Girls, hurrying in late for supper, with the Soldiers in the Park. When he walked slowly through the restaurant, pausing at each table, his eyes, even while they ogled the women to whom he played, followed the brother Tzigane—who was passing the plate—and noted which of the patrons gave silver and which gave gold.
Edouard, the second violin, was all that Bardini was not, consequently he was entirely unsuited to lead an orchestra in a restaurant. Indeed, so little did he understand of what was required of him that on the only occasion when Bardini sent him to pass the plate he was so unsophisticated as not to hide the sixpences and shillings under the napkin, and so leave only the half-crowns and gold pieces exposed. And, instead of smiling mockingly at those who gave the sixpences, and waiting for them to give more, he even looked grateful, and at the same time deeply ashamed. He differed from Bardini also in that he was very thin and tall, with the serious, smooth-shaven face of a priest. Except for his fantastic costume, there was nothing about him to recall the poses of the musician: his hair was neither long nor curly; it lay straight across his forehead and flat on either side, and when he played, his eyes neither sought out the admiring auditor nor invited his applause. On the contrary, they looked steadfastly ahead. It was as though they belonged to someone apart, who was listening intently to the music. But in the waits between the numbers the boy's eyes turned from table to table, observing the people in his audience. He knew nearly all of them by sight: the head waiters who brought him their “commands,” and his brother-musicians, had often discussed them in his hearing. They represented every city of the world, every part of the social edifice: there were those who came to look at the spectacle, and those who came to be looked at; those who gave a dinner for the sake of the diners, those who dined for the dinner alone. To some the restaurant was a club; others ventured in counting the cost, taking it seriously, even considering that it conferred upon them some social distinction. There were pretty women in paint and spangles, with conscious, half-grown boys just up from Oxford; company-promoters dining and wining possible subscribers or “guinea-pigs” into an acquiescent state; Guardsmen giving a dinner of farewell to brother-officers departing for the Soudan or the Cape; wide-eyed Americans just off the steamer in high dresses, great ladies in low dresses and lofty tiaras, and ladies of the stage, utterly unconscious of the boon they were conferring on the people about them, who, an hour before, had paid ten shillings to look at them from the stalls.
Edouard, as he sat with his violin on his knee, his fingers fretting the silent strings, observed them all without envy and without interest. Had he been able to choose, it would not have been to such a well-dressed mob as this that he would have given his music. For at times a burst of laughter killed a phrase that was sacred to him, and sometimes the murmur of the voices and the clatter of the waiters would drown him out altogether. But the artist in him forced him to play all things well, and for his own comfort he would assure himself that no doubt somewhere in the room someone was listening, someone who thought more of the strange, elusive melodies of the Hungarian folksongs than of the chefs entrees, and that for this unknown one he must be true to himself and true to his work. Covertly, he would seek out some face to which he could make the violin speak—not openly and impertinently, as did Bardini, but secretly and for sympathy, so that only one could understand. It pleased young Edouard to see such a one raise her head as though she had heard her name spoken, and hold it poised to listen, and turn slowly in her chair, so completely engaged that she forgot the man at her elbow, and the food before her was taken away untouched. It delighted him to think that she knew that the music was speaking to her alone. But he would not have had her think that the musician spoke, too—it was the soul of the music, not his soul, that was reaching out to the pretty stranger. When his soul spoke through the music it would not be, so he assured himself, to such chatterers as gathered on the terrace of the Savoy Restaurant.