Cord and Creese Read online

  CHAPTER XI.

  THE IMPROVISATORE.

  The character of Beatrice unfolded more and more every day, and everynew development excited the wonder of Brandon.

  She said once that music was to her like the breath of life, and indeedit seemed to be; for now, since Brandon had witnessed her powers,he noticed how all her thoughts took a coloring from this. What mostsurprised him was her profound acquirements in the more difficultbranches of the art. It was not merely the case of a great natural giftof voice. Her whole soul seemed imbued with those subtle influenceswhich music can most of all bestow. Her whole life seemed to have beenpassed in one long intercourse with the greatest works of the greatestmasters. All their works were perfectly well known to her. A marvelousmemory enabled her to have their choicest productions at command;and Brandon, who in the early part of his life had received a carefulmusical education, knew enough about it to estimate rightly the fullextent of the genius of his companion, and to be astonished thereat.

  Her mind was also full of stories about the lives, acts, and words ofthe great masters. For her they formed the only world with which shecared to be acquainted, and the only heroes whom she had power toadmire. All this flowed from one profound central feeling--namely, adeep and all-absorbing love of this most divine art. To her it wasmore than art. It was a new faculty to him who possessed it. It was thehighest power of utterance--such utterance as belongs to the angels;such utterance as, when possessed by man, raises him almost to anequality with them.

  Brandon found out every day some new power in her genius. Now her voicewas unloosed from the bonds which she had placed upon it. She sang, shesaid, because it was better than talking. Words were weak--song wasall expression. Nor was it enough for her to take the compositions ofothers. Those were infinitely better, she said, than any thing whichshe could produce; but each one must have his own native expression;and there were times when she had to sing from herself. To Brandonthis seemed the most amazing of her powers. In Italy the power ofimprovisation is not uncommon, and Englishmen generally imagine thatthis is on account of some peculiar quality of the Italian language.This is not the case. One can improvise in any language; and Brandonfound that Beatrice could do this with the English.

  "It is not wonderful," said she, in answer to his expression ofastonishment, "it is not even difficult. There is an art in doing this,but, when you once know it, you find no trouble. It is rhythmic prose ina series of lines. Each line must contain a thought. Langhetti found nodifficulty in making rhyming lines, but rhymes are not necessary. Thisrhythmic prose is as poetic as any thing can be. All the hymns of theGreek Church are written on this principle. So are the Te Deum and theGloria. So were all the ancient Jewish psalms. The Jews improvised. Isuppose Deborah's song, and perhaps Miriam's, are of this order."

  "And you think the art can be learned by every one?"

  "No, not by every one. One must have a quick and vivid imagination,and natural fluency--but these are all. Genius makes all the differencebetween what is good and what is bad. Sometimes you have a song ofMiriam that lives while the world lasts, sometimes a poor little songlike one of mine."

  "Sing to me about music," said Brandon, suddenly.

  Beatrice immediately began an improvisation. But the music to which shesang was lofty and impressive, and the marvelous sweetness of her voiceproduced an indescribable effect. And again, as always when she sang,the fashion of her face was changed, and she became transfigured beforehis eyes. It was the same rhythmic prose of which she had been speaking,sung according to the mode in which the Gloria is chanted, and dividedinto bars of equal time.

  Brandon, as always, yielded to the spell of her song. To him it was anincantation. Her own strains varied to express the changing sentiment,and at last, as the song ended, it seemed to die away in melodiousmelancholy, like the dying strain of the fabled swan.

  "Sing on!" he exclaimed, fervently; "I would wish to stand and hear yourvoice forever."

  A smile of ineffable sweetness came over her face. She looked at him,and said nothing. Brandon bowed his head, and stood in silence.

  Thus ended many of their interviews. Slowly and steadily this young girlgained over him an ascendency which he felt hourly, and which was sostrong that he did not even struggle against it. Her marvelous genius,so subtle, so delicate, yet so inventive and quick, amazed him. If hespoke of this, she attributed every thing to Langhetti. "Could you butsee him," she would say, "I should seem like nothing!"

  "Has he such a voice?"

  "Oh! he has no voice at all. It is his soul," she would reply. "Hespeaks through the violin. But he taught me all that I know. He saidmy voice was God's gift. He had a strange theory that the language ofheaven and of the angels was music, and that he who loved it best onearth made his life and his thoughts most heavenly."

  "You must have been fond of such a man."

  "Very," said Beatrice, with the utmost simplicity. "Oh, I loved him sodearly!"

  But in this confession, so artlessly made, Brandon saw only a love thatwas filial or sisterly. "He was the first one," said Beatrice, "whoshowed me the true meaning of life. He exalted his art above all otherarts, and always maintained that it was the purest and best thing whichthe world possessed. This consoled him for exile, poverty, and sorrow ofmany kinds."

  "Was he married?"

  Beatrice looked at Brandon with a singular smile. "Married! Langhettimarried! Pardon me; but the idea of Langhetti in domestic life is soridiculous."

  "Why? The greatest musicians have married."

  Beatrice looked up to the sky with a strange, serene smile. "Langhettihas no passion out of art," she said. "As an artist he is all fire, andvehemence, and enthusiasm. He is aware of all human passions, but onlyas an artist. He has only one love, and that is music. This is his idol.He seems to me himself like a song. But all the raptures which poets andnovelists apply to lovers are felt by him in his music. He wants nothingwhile he has this. He thinks the musician's life the highest life. Hesays those to whom the revelations of God were committed were musicians.As David and Isaiah received inspiration to the strains of the harp,so, he says, have Bach and Mozart, Handel and Haydn, Beethoven andMendelssohn. And where, indeed," she continued, in a musing tone, halfsoliloquizing, "where, indeed, can man rise so near heaven as when helistens to the inspired strains of these lofty souls?"

  "Langhetti," said Brandon, in a low voice, "does not understand love, orhe would not put music in its place."

  "Yes," said Beatrice. "We spoke once about that. He has his own ideas,which he expressed to me."

  "What were they?"

  "I will have to say them as he said them," said she. "For on this themehe had to express himself in music."

  Brandon waited in rapt expectation. Beatrice began to sing:

  "Fairest of all most fair, Young Love, how comest thou Unto the soul? Still as the evening breeze Over the starry wave-- The moonlit wave--

  "The heart lies motionless; So still, so sensitive; Love fans the breeze. Lo! at his lightest touch, The myriad ripples rise, And murmur on.

  "And ripples rise to waves, And waves to rolling seas, Till, far and wide, The endless billows roll, In undulations long, For evermore!"

  Her voice died away into a scarce audible tone, which sank intoBrandon's heart, lingering and dying about the last word, with touchingand unutterable melancholy. It was like the lament of one who loved. Itwas like the cry of some yearning heart.

  In a moment Beatrice looked at Brandon with a swift, bright smile. Shehad sung these words as an artist. For a moment Brandon had thought thatshe was expressing her own feelings. But the bright smile on her facecontrasted so strongly with the melancholy of her voice that he saw thiswas not so.

  "Thus," she said, "Langhetti sang about it: and I have never forgottenhis words."

  The thought came to Brandon, is it not truer than she thinks, that "sheloves him very dearly?" as she said.

  "You were born to be an artist," he
said, at last.

  Beatrice sighed lightly. "That's what I never can be, I am afraid,"said she. "Yet I hope I may be able to gratify my love for it. Art,"she continued, musingly, "is open to women as well as to men; and of allarts none are so much so as music. The interpretation of great mastersis a blessing to the world. Langhetti used to say that these are theonly ones of modern times that have received heavenly inspiration.They correspond to the Jewish prophets. He used to declare that theinterpretation of each was of equal importance. To man is given theinterpretation of the one, but to woman is given the interpretation ofmuch of the other. Why is not my voice, if it is such as he said, andespecially the feeling within me, a Divine call to go forth upon thismission of interpreting the inspired utterances of the great masters ofmodern days?

  "You," she continued, "are a man, and you have a purpose." Brandonstarted, but she did not notice it. "You have a purpose in life," sherepeated. "Your intercourse with me will hereafter be but an episode inthe life that is before you. I am a girl, but I too may wish to havea purpose in life--suited to my powers; and if I am not able to worktoward it I shall not be satisfied."

  "How do you know that I have a purpose, as you call it?" asked Brandon,after a pause.

  "By the expression of your face, and your whole manner when you arealone and subside into yourself," she replied, simply.

  "And of what kind?" he continued.

  "That I do not seek to know," she replied; "but I know that it must bedeep and all-absorbing. It seems to me to be too stern for Love; you arenot the man to devote yourself to Avarice: possibly it may be Ambition,yet somehow I do not think so."

  "What do you think it is, then?" asked Brandon, in a voice which haddied away, almost to a whisper.

  She looked at him earnestly; she looked at him pityingly. She lookedat him also with that sympathy which might be evinced by one's GuardianAngel, if that Being might by any chance become visible. She leanedtoward him, and spoke low in a voice only audible to him:

  "Something stronger than Love, and Avarice, and Ambition," said she."There can be only one thing."

  "What?"

  "Vengeance!" she said, in a voice of inexpressible mournfulness.

  Brandon looked at her wonderingly, not knowing how this young girl couldhave divined his thoughts. He long remained silent.

  Beatrice folded her hands together, and looked pensively at the sea.

  "You are a marvelous being," said Brandon, at length. "Can you tell meany more?"

  "I might," said she, hesitatingly; "but I am afraid you will think meimpertinent."

  "No," said Brandon. "Tell me, for perhaps you are mistaken."

  "You will not think me impertinent, then? You will only think that Isaid so because you asked me?"

  "I entreat you to believe that it is impossible for me to thinkotherwise of you than you yourself would wish."

  "Shall I say it, then?"

  "Yes."

  Her voice again sank to a whisper. "Your name is not Wheeler."

  Brandon looked at her earnestly. "How did you learn that?"

  "By nothing more than observation."

  "What is my name?"

  "Ah, that is beyond my power to know," said she with a smile. "I haveonly discovered what you are not. Now you will not think me a spy, willyou?" she continued, in a pleading voice.

  Brandon smiled on her mournfully as she stood looking at him with herdark eyes upraised.

  "A spy!" he repeated. "To me it is the sweetest thought conceivablethat you could take the trouble to notice me sufficiently." He checkedhimself suddenly, for Beatrice looked away, and her hands which had beenfolded together clutched each other nervously. "It is always flatteringfor a gentleman to be the object of a lady's notice," he concluded, in alight tone.

  Beatrice smiled. "But where," he continued, "could you have gainedthat power of divination which you possess; you who have always lived asecluded life in so remote a place?"

  "You did not think that one like me could come out of Hong-Kong, didyou?" said she, laughingly.

  "Well, I have seen much of the world; but I have not so much of thispower as you have."

  "You might have more if--if--" she hesitated. "Well," she continued,"they say, you know, that men act by reason, women by intuition."

  "Have you any more intuitions?" asked Brandon, earnestly.

  "Yes," said she, mournfully.

  "Tell me some."

  "They will not do to tell," said Beatrice, in the same mournful tone.

  "Why not?"

  "They are painful."

  "Tell them at any rate."

  "No."

  "Hint at them."

  Beatrice looked at him earnestly. Their eyes met. In hers there wasa glance of anxious inquiry, as though her soul were putting forth aquestion by that look which was stronger than words. In his there wasa glance of anxious expectancy, as though his soul were speaking untohers, saying: "Tell all; let me know if you suspect that of which I amafraid to think."

  "We have met with ships at sea," she resumed, in low, deliberate tones.

  "Yes."

  "Sometimes we have caught up with them, we have exchanged signals,we have sailed in sight of one another for hours or for days, holdingintercourse all the while. At last a new morning has come, and we lookedout over the sea, and the other ship has gone from sight. We have leftit forever. Perhaps we have drifted away, perhaps a storm has parted us,the end is the same--separation for evermore."

  She spoke mournfully, looking away, her voice insensibly took up acadence, and the words seemed to fall of themselves into rhythmic pause.

  "I understand you," said Brandon, with a more profound mournfulness inhis voice. "You speak like a Sibyl. I pray Heaven that your words maynot be a prophecy."

  Beatrice still looked at him, and in her eyes he read pity beyond words;and sorrow also as deep as that pity.

  "Do you read my thoughts as I read yours?" asked Brandon, abruptly.

  "Yes," she answered, mournfully.

  He turned his face away.

  "Did Langhetti teach you this also?" he asked, at last.

  "He taught me many things," was the answer.

  Day succeeded to day, and week to week. Still the ship went on holdingsteadily to her course northward, and every day drawing nearer andnearer her goal. Storms came--some moderate, some severe; but the shipescaped them all with no casualties, and with but little delay.

  At last they passed the equator, and seemed to have entered the laststage of their journey.