I listened. How I listened!—like a famished cougar at the sound of a deer.
The music was sweet, delicious, full of fantastic melody. It was the light, airy music of Sullivan; and not a halt, not even a falter did the player make as she tripped and waltzed through the opera. One picture after another rose before me and dissolved into still others, as the old, haunting tunes caught my ears, floating from that open window.
I could see the lady under the soft glow of the lamp, sitting at the piano, smiling and all absorbed,—the light gleaming gold on her coils of luxuriant hair.
After a time the mood of the pianist changed. She drifted into the deeper, the more sombre, more impressive "Kamennoi-Ostrow" of Rubinstein. She played it softly, so softly, yet so expressively sadly, that I was drawn by its alluring to leave my veranda and cross over the wooden bridge, in order to be nearer and to hear better.
Quietly, but quite openly, I took the path by the house, on to the edge of the cliffs, where I could hear every note, every shade of expression; where I could follow the story:—the Russian setting, the summer evening, the beautiful lady, the pealing of the bells calling the worshippers to the chapel for midnight mass; the whispered conversations, the organ in solemn chant, the priests intoning the service, the farewell, and, lastly, the lingering chords of the organ fading into the deep silence of slumber.
Just as I was about to sit down, I descried the solitary, shadowy outline of a figure seated a few yards away.
It was Jake,—poor, old, lonely, battle-scarred Jake. His head was in his hands and he was gazing out to sea as if he were dreaming.
I walked over to him and sat by his side. His blue eyes were filled with tears, tears that had not dimmed his eyes for years and years; tears in the eyes of that old Klondike tough, calloused by privation and leather-hided by hard drinking; tears, and at music which he did not understand any more than that it was something outside of his body altogether, outside of the material world, something that spoke only to the soul of him.
I did not speak,—I dared not speak, for the moment was too sacred.
So we two sat thus, knowing of each other's presence, yet ignoring it, and listening, all absorbed, entranced, almost hypnotised by the subtleties of the most charming of all gifts, the perfect interpretation of a work of art.