by E. F. Benson
“Anything you like.”
He sat down at the far end of the room, put his long legs up on to another chair and waited. Michael sent a despairing glance at that gay face, suddenly grown grim, and took his seat. He felt a paralysing conviction that Falbe’s judgment, whatever that might turn out to be, would be right, and the knowledge turned his fingers stiff. From the few notes that Falbe had struck he guessed on what sort of instrument his ordeal was to take place, and yet he knew that Falbe himself would have been able to convey to him the sense that he could play, though the piano was all out of tune, and there might be dumb, disconcerting notes in it. There was justice in Falbe’s dictum about the temperament that lay behind the player, which would assert itself through any faultiness of instrument, and through, so he suspected, any faultiness of execution.
He struck a chord, and heard it jangle dissonantly.
“Oh, it’s not fair,” he said.
“Get on!” said Falbe.
In spite of Germany there occurred to Michael a Chopin prelude, at which he had worked a little during the last two months in London. The notes he knew perfectly; he had believed also that he had found a certain conception of it as a whole, so that he could make something coherent out of it, not merely adding bar to correct bar. And he began the soft repetition of chord-quavers with which it opened.
Then after stumbling wretchedly through two lines of it, he suddenly forgot himself and Falbe, and the squealing unresponsive notes. He heard them no more, absorbed in the knowledge of what he meant by them, of the mood which they produced in him. His great, ungainly hands had all the gentleness and self-control that strength gives, and the finger-filling chords were as light and as fine as the settling of some poised bird on a bough. In the last few lines of the prelude a deep bass note had to be struck at the beginning of each bar; this Michael found was completely dumb, but so clear and vivid was the effect of it in his mind that he scarcely noticed that it returned no answer to his finger.… At the end he sat without moving, his hands dropped on to his knees.
Falbe got up and, coming over to the piano, struck the bass note himself.
“Yes, I knew it was dumb,” he said, “but you made me think it wasn’t.… You got quite a good tone out of it.”
He paused a moment, again striking the dumb note, as if to make sure that it was soundless.
“Yes; I’ll teach you,” he said. “All the technique you have got, you know, is wrong from beginning to end, and you mustn’t mind unlearning all that. But you’ve got the thing that matters.”
All this stewed and seethed in Michael’s mind as he sat that night by the window looking out on to the silent and empty street. His thoughts flowed without check or guide from his will, wandering wherever their course happened to take them, now lingering, like the water of a river in some deep, still pool, when he thought of the friendship that had come into his life, now excitedly plunging down the foam of swift-flowing rapids in the exhilaration of his newly-found liberty, now proceeding with steady current at the thought of the weeks of unremitting industry at a beloved task that lay in front of him. He could form no definite image out of these which should represent his ordinary day; it was all lost in a bright haze through which its shape was but faintly discernible; but life lay in front of him with promise, a thing to be embraced and greeted with welcome and eager hands, instead of being a mere marsh through which he had to plod with labouring steps, a business to be gone about without joy and without conviction in its being worth while.
He wondered for a moment, as he rose to go to bed, what his feelings would have been if, at the end of his performance on the sore-throated and voiceless piano, Falbe had said: “I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything with you.” As he knew, Falbe intended for the future only to take a few pupils, and chiefly devote himself to his own practice with a view to emerging as a concert-giver the next winter; and as Michael had sat down, he remembered telling himself that there was really not the slightest chance of his friend accepting him as a pupil. He did not intend that this rejection should make the smallest difference to his aim, but he knew that he would start his work under the tremendous handicap of Falbe not believing that he had it in him to play, and under the disappointment of not enjoying the added intimacy which work with and for Falbe would give him. Then he had engaged in this tussle with refractory notes till he quite lost himself in what he was playing, and thought no more either of Falbe or the piano, but only of what the melody meant to him. But at the end, when he came to himself again, and sat with dropped hands waiting for Falbe’s verdict, he remembered how his heart seemed to hang poised until it came. He had rehearsed again to himself his fixed determination that he would play and could play, whatever his friend might think about it; but there was no doubt that he waited with a greater suspense than he had ever known in his life before for that verdict to be made known to him.
Next day came their journey to Munich, and the installation in the best hotel in Europe. Here Michael was host, and the economy which he practised when he had only himself to provide for, and which made him go second-class when travelling, was, as usual, completely abandoned now that the pleasure of hospitality was his. He engaged at once the best double suite of rooms that the hotel contained, two bedrooms with bathrooms, and an admirable sitting-room, looking spaciously out on to the square, and with brusque decision silenced Falbe’s attempted remonstrance. “Don’t interfere with my show, please,” he had said, and proceeded to inquire about a piano to be sent in for the week. Then he turned to his friend again. “Oh, we are going to enjoy ourselves,” he said, with an irresistible sincerity.
Tristan und Isolde was given on the third day of their stay there, and Falbe, reading the morning German paper, found news.
“The Kaiser has arrived,” he said. “There’s a truce in the army manoeuvres for a couple of days, and he has come to be present at Tristan this evening. He’s travelled three hundred miles to get here, and will go back tomorrow. The Reise-Kaiser, you know.”
Michael looked up with some slight anxiety.
“Ought I to write my name or anything?” he asked. “He has stayed several times with my father.”
“Has he? But I don’t suppose it matters. The visit is a widely-advertised incognito. That’s his way. God be with the All-highest,” he added.
“Well, I shan’t” said Michael. “But it would shock my father dreadfully if he knew. The Kaiser looks on him as the type and model of the English nobleman.”
Michael crunched one of the inimitable breakfast rusks in his teeth.
“Lord, what a day we had when he was at Ashbridge last year,” he said. “We began at eight with a review of the Suffolk Yeomanry; then we had a pheasant shoot from eleven till three; then the Emperor had out a steam launch and careered up and down the river till six, asking a thousand questions about the tides and the currents and the navigable channels. Then he lectured us on the family portraits till dinner; after dinner there was a concert, at which he conducted the ‘Song to Aegir,’ and then there was a torch-light fandango by the tenants on the lawn. He was on his holiday, you must remember.”
“I heard the ‘Song to Aegir’ once,” remarked Falbe, with a perfectly level intonation.
“I was—er—luckier,” said Michael politely, “because on that occasion I heard it twice. It was encored.”
“And what did it sound like the second time?” asked Falbe.
“Much as before,” said Michael.
The advent of the Emperor had put the whole town in a ferment. Though the visit was quite incognito, an enormous military staff which had been poured into the town might have led the thoughtful to suspect the Kaiser’s presence, even if it had not been announced in the largest type in the papers, and marchings and counter-marchings of troops and sudden bursts of national airs proclaimed the august presence. He held an informal review of certain Bavarian troops not out for manoeuvres in the morning, visited the sculpture gallery and pinacothek in the afternoon, and when Hermann and Michael
went up to the theatre they found rows of soldiers drawn up, and inside unusual decorations over a section of stalls which had been removed and was converted into an enormous box. This was in the centre of the first tier, nearly at right angles to where they sat, in the front row of the same tier; and when, with military punctuality, the procession of uniforms, headed by the Emperor, filed in, the whole of the crowded house stood up and broke into a roar of recognition and loyalty.
For a minute, or perhaps more, the Emperor stood facing the house with his hand raised in salute, a figure the uprightness of which made him look tall. His brilliant uniform was ablaze with decorations; he seemed every inch a soldier and a leader of men. For that minute he stood looking neither to the right nor left, stern and almost frowning, with no shadow of a smile playing on the tightly-drawn lips, above which his moustache was brushed upwards in two stiff protuberances towards his eyes. He was there just then not to see, but to be seen, his incognito was momentarily in abeyance, and he stood forth the supreme head of his people, the All-highest War Lord, who had come that day from the field, to which he would return across half Germany tomorrow. It was an impressive and dignified moment, and Michael heard Falbe say to himself: “Kaiserlich! Kaiserlich!”
Then it was over. The Emperor sat down, beckoned to two of his officers, who had stood in a group far at the back of the box, to join him, and with one on each side he looked about the house and chatted to them. He had taken out his opera-glass, which he adjusted, using his right hand only, and looked this way and that, as if, incognito again, he was looking for friends in the house. Once Michael thought that he looked rather long and fixedly in his direction, and then, putting down his glass, he said something to one of the officers, this time clearly pointing towards Michael. Then he gave some signal, just raising his hand towards the orchestra, and immediately the lights were put down, the whole house plunged in darkness, except where the lamps in the sunk orchestra faintly illuminated the base of the curtain, and the first longing, unsatisfied notes of the prelude began.
The next hour passed for Michael in one unbroken mood of absorption. The supreme moment of knowing the music intimately and of never having seen the opera before was his, and all that he had dreamed of or imagined as to the possibilities of music was flooded and drowned in the thing itself. You could not say that it was more gigantic than The Ring, more human than the Meistersingers, more emotional than Parsifal, but it was utterly and wholly different to anything else he had ever seen or conjectured. Falbe, he himself, the thronged and silent theatre, the Emperor, Munich, Germany, were all blotted out of his consciousness. He just watched, as if discarnate, the unrolling of the decrees of Fate which were to bring so simple and overpowering a tragedy on the two who drained the love-potion together. And at the end he fell back in his seat, feeling thrilled and tired, exhilarated and exhausted.
“Oh, Hermann,” he said, “what years I’ve wasted!”
Falbe laughed.
“You’ve wasted more than you know yet,” he said. “Hallo!”
A very resplendent officer had come clanking down the gangway next them. He put his heels together and bowed.
“Lord Comber, I think?” he said in excellent English.
Michael roused himself.
“Yes?” he said.
“His Imperial Majesty has done me the honour to desire you to come and speak to him,” he said.
“Now?” said Michael.
“If you will be so good,” and he stood aside for Michael to pass up the stairs in front of him.
In the wide corridor behind he joined him again.
“Allow me to introduce myself as Count von Bergmann,” he said, “and one of His Majesty’s aides-de-camp. The Kaiser always speaks with great pleasure of the visits he has paid to your father, and he saw you immediately he came into the theatre. If you will permit me, I would advise you to bow, but not very low, respecting His Majesty’s incognito, to seat yourself as soon as he desires it, and to remain till he gives you some speech of dismissal. Forgive me for going in front of you here. I have to introduce you to His Majesty’s presence.”
Michael followed him down the steps to the front of the box.
“Lord Comber, All-highest,” he said, and instantly stood back.
The Emperor rose and held out his hand, and Michael, bowing over it as he took it, felt himself seized in the famous grip of steel, of which its owner as well as its recipient was so conscious.
“I am much pleased to see you, Lord Comber,” said he. “I could not resist the pleasure of a little chat with you about our beloved England. And your excellent father, how is he?”
He indicated a chair to Michael, who, as advised, instantly took it, though the Emperor remained a moment longer standing.
“I left him in very good health, Your Majesty,” said Michael.
“Ah! I am glad to hear it. I desire you to convey to him my friendliest greetings, and to your mother also. I well remember my last visit to his house above the tidal estuary at Ashbridge, and I hope it may not be very long before I have the opportunity to be in England again.”
He spoke in a voice that seemed rather hoarse and tired, but his manner expressed the most courteous cordiality. His face, which had been as still as a statue’s when he showed himself to the house, was now never in repose for a moment. He kept turning his head, which he carried very upright, this way and that as he spoke; now he would catch sight of someone in the audience to whom he directed his glance, now he would peer over the edge of the low balustrade, now look at the group of officers who stood apart at the back of the box.
His whole demeanour suggested a nervous, highly-strung condition; the restlessness of it was that of a man overstrained, who had lost the capability of being tranquil. Now he frowned, now he smiled, but never for a moment was he quiet. Then he launched a perfect hailstorm of questions at Michael, to the answers to which (there was scarcely time for more than a monosyllable in reply) he listened with an eager and a suspicious attention. They were concerned at first with all sorts of subjects: inquired if Michael had been at Baireuth, what he was going to do after the Munich festival was over, if he had English friends here. He inquired Falbe’s name, looked at him for a moment through his glasses, and desired to know more about him. Then, learning he was a teacher of the piano in England, and had a sister who sang, he expressed great satisfaction.
“I like to see my subjects, when there is no need for their services at home,” he said, “learning about other lands, and bringing also to other lands the culture of the Fatherland, even as it always gives me pleasure to see the English here, strengthening by the study of the arts the bonds that bind our two great nations together. You English must learn to understand us and our great mission, just as we must learn to understand you.”
Then the questions became more specialised, and concerned the state of things in England. He laughed over the disturbances created by the Suffragettes, was eager to hear what politicians thought about the state of things in Ireland, made specific inquiries about the Territorial Force, asked about the Navy, the state of the drama in London, the coal strike which was threatened in Yorkshire. Then suddenly he put a series of personal questions.
“And you, you are in the Guards, I think?” he said.
“No, sir; I have just resigned my commission,” said Michael.
“Why? Why is that? Have many of your officers been resigning?”
“I am studying music, Your Majesty,” said Michael.
“I am glad to see you came to Germany to do it. Berlin? You ought to spend a couple of months in Berlin. Perhaps you are thinking of doing so.”
He turned round quickly to one of his staff who had approached him.
“Well, what is it?” he said.
Count von Bergmann bowed low.
“The Herr-Director,” he said, “humbly craves to know whether it is Your Majesty’s pleasure that the opera shall proceed.”
The Kaiser laughed.
“There,
Lord Comber,” he said, “you see how I am ordered about. They wish to cut short my conversation with you. Yes, Bergmann, we will go on. You will remain with me, Lord Comber, for this act.”
Immediately after the lights were lowered again, the curtain rose, and a most distracting hour began for Michael. His neighbour was never still for a single moment. Now he would shift in his chair, now with his hand he would beat time on the red velvet balustrade in front of him, and a stream of whispered appreciation and criticism flowed from him.
“They are taking the opening scene a little too slow,” he said. “I shall call the director’s attention to that. But that crescendo is well done; yes, that is most effective. The shawl—observe the beautiful lines into which the shawl falls as she waves it. That is wonderful—a very impressive entry. Ah, but they should not cross the stage yet; it is more effective if they remain longer there. Brangane sings finely; she warns them that the doom is near.”
He gave a little giggle, which reminded Michael of his father.
“Brangane is playing gooseberry, as you say in England,” he said. “A big gooseberry, is she not? Ah, bravo! Bravo! Wunderschon! Yes, enter King Mark from his hunting. Very fine. Say I was particularly pleased with the entry of King Mark, Bergmann. A wonderful act! Wagner never touched greater heights.”
At the end the Emperor rose and again held out his hand.
“I am pleased to have seen you, Lord Comber,” he said. “Do not forget my message to your father; and take my advice and come to Berlin in the winter. We are always pleased to see the English in Germany.”
As Michael left the box he ran into the Herr-Director, who had been summoned to get a few hints.
He went back to join Falbe in a state of republican irritation, which the honour that had been done him did not at all assuage. There was an hour’s interval before the third act, and the two drove back to their hotel to dine there. But Michael found his friend wholly unsympathetic with his chagrin. To him, it was quite clear, the disappointment of not having been able to attend very closely to the second act of Tristan was negligible compared to the cause that had occasioned it. It was possible for the ordinary mortal to see Tristan over and over again, but to converse with the Kaiser was a thing outside the range of the average man. And again in this interval, as during the act itself, Michael was bombarded with questions. What did the Kaiser say? Did he remember Ashbridge? Did Michael twice receive the iron grip? Did the All-highest say anything about the manoeuvres? Did he look tired, or was it only the light above his head that made him appear so haggard? Even his opinion about the opera was of interest. Did he express approval?