CHAPTER XLI
EIN WUNDERBARES FRAULEIN
Fritz Geisling, who for many years had lived in two rooms, second floor,No. 10 Amity Place, was short, fat, and bald. Each morning he arose atseven, went out to an adjoining cafe where German cookery was served"twenty-one meals for three dollars," as stated on its bill of fare, andreturned to his domicile, glancing at the small sign, "Violin Lessons,"placed above the upper bell, and mounting the two flights of stairs,awaited in his office, sitting room and parlor combined, the few pupilswho came his way. At noon he absorbed another of the "twenty-one forthree dollar" productions of culinary art, washed down with a stein offoaming beer, and then, if it were matinee day at the Alhambra Temple ofVaudeville, betook himself thither, where he played second violin. Eachevening, from the opening in September until closing time in June, hewas at his post, sawing away like the machine he was and as devoid ofsentiment. When he escaped the Alhambra, it was to join his cronies in aconvenient saloon where pinocle, beer, and choice Teutonic gossiprelieved the monotony of his existence. Year in and year out he was thesame phlegmatic, good-natured Dutchman, and lived the same unvarying andemotionless existence. Of the great Rockhaven stock scheme he had neverheard, and would not have understood it if he had. Of "the street" andits multiplicity of deals where "to do" the other fellow and not let him"do" you was the golden rule, he was equally innocent--a drop in thethrobbing artery of human existence.
And then, one winter morning, Fritz returned to his lair to findawaiting him a strangely clad man and a young half-scared girl.
"I'm told ye gin lessons on the fiddle," said the man, "an' if ye do,I've come to engage ye fer this ere gal."
Fritz bowed low, conscious that a pair of magnificent eyes were watchinghim.
"It vash mine broveshion," he answered, "und von tollar each ish debrice. Ish de lady to be de pupils?"
"She's the one," came the answer; "an' I want ye to teach her all thefrills, 'n' yer money's ready an' waitin' any time."
"Ish she von peginner?" came from Fritz.
"Wal, sorter, 'n' sorter not," replied the man; "my name's Hutton, an'this ere's my niece, Miss Hutton, an' I've larnt her to saw just aleetle to start her off, ez it war. If ye'd like, she'll show ye whatshe kin do with a bow. Play suthin' slow, Mona, fust," he added as aviolin was handed her, "till ye kinder ketch yerself, an' then suthin'lively."
Mona somewhat nervously complied, and gaining courage as she forgotwhere she was, skipped over a half-dozen of the familiar Scotch airs shecould play best, while the eyes of Fritz twinkled.
"She vash no peginner," he said elated; "she vash blain' alretty yetvery mooch." And seizing a music-rack and spreading a late compositionupon it, he added, "Ef de lady vill blease blay dot, ve'll see vot shecan do."
"Ye've got'r now, perfessor," interposed Jess, "she can't read thatmusic."
But a surprise was awaiting him, for though half-scared Mona hesitatedand made a few slips, she played the piece through to the end without ahalt.
"Why, girlie," exclaimed Jess, "I'm proud o' ye. I didn't think ye cuddo so well. Now, perfessor, ye kin take her in hand; 'n' mind ye don'tlet up on her till she's larned the hull biznes, fer fiddlin's goin' tobe her futur' perfession."
That night, when Fritz had once more escaped the crowded theatre and wasquaffing his foaming stein, could any native American translate therapid fire jargon with which he related his morning experience, he wouldhave heard a marvellous tale.
"Mein Gott in Himmel!" Fritz exclaimed, after the fourth glass had beenemptied, "but she blayed mit such feelin's und such eyes dot mit me madesuch strangeness feels. Ach, but she vas a vonder!"
And as time passed on, each of the two days a week when Mona came totake her lesson only served to increase that "vonder," for now that hertimidity had worn away, the genius that lurked in her fingers asserteditself. In technical art she was as yet a pupil, but in the far moreimpressive art of inspiration and expression, so natural to her, she hadnaught to learn.
"She blays mit her heart und all ofer, und vorgets all I tells her ofbosition und oxecution," explained Fritz to his cronies, "und ven shelooks at me I forgets meinself."
Then as the weeks went by, a new idea came to Fritz, who seldom had any;and straightway he began to nurse it.
"Ef she so blays mit mein violin, ven I haf heard dat music all meinlife, vot vill beoples dinks who vash to hear her on de stage?" he saidto himself. "I vill say nodding und make some surbrises by and by."
That Mona had the same secret ambition he knew not, and most likely itwere as well he did not. But the long upward path to her goal was not aneasy one, for if Fritz had lacked emotion, he excelled in detail; andeach time Mona forgot, as she so often did, it provoked expressions fromhim that tinged her cheeks with humiliation.
"I have much to learn," she answered almost pitifully, whenever heruncle asked of her progress, "and so much to unlearn, it seemsdiscouraging."
"It'll come easier bimeby, girlie," he would respond cheerfully, "thefust lesson in anything is allus the hardest."
But the vexations of tuition were only a small part of Mona's burden;for as the weeks went by, and she became accustomed to her new life andsurroundings, the old heartache returned, and as her uncle ofteninsisted that she and her mother go out to some evening entertainment asa break in the quiet boarding-house life they led, a new fear assailedher. What if on street car or in theatre lobby she should suddenly meetWinn Hardy! His name had not been mentioned for many months, and it wasas if he were dead.
And now Mona was unlearning the sad lesson of loving, and in its placecame a new inspiration, an ambition so broad, so uplifting, so full ofpossibilities, that even the voice of love was stilled. At times theface of Winn would return to her, however, and always bringing a thorn.
"He is what he said all his world were," she would say to herself,"selfish, fickle, and heartless. He wished to flatter and amuse me andhimself as well, but that was all." And then the moment he had held herin his arms would return to give the lie to all such thoughts.
At times she hoped that she might meet him some day, just to give onelook of reproach and pass on without a word; and then she dreaded to doso, believing herself powerless to resist her own longings. Feeling thusa sense of the wrong he had done her, the tender looks and words he haduttered, and at last that one sweet moment,--all came back again. Puthim out of her mind she could not, nor his face either. By night,thoughts of him haunted her pillow, and whenever she set foot out oftheir temporary home, no matter where she went, and until she was safein it again, that peculiar dread was with her.
She did not know that during all these months of her suspense, WinnHardy, discouraged at the utter failure of his ambition and hopeless ofhis future, was not only doing his best to put her out of his thoughts,but battling for another foothold in life. Forget her, or the obligationwhispered on Rockhaven's wave-washed cliff, he could not and did not;but in the hard grind of life and competition of wage-earning, loveplays only a minor part. Even less so with Winn than most, for hedistrusted all sentiment, even in himself.
Few have the scope to judge another from that person's own viewpoint ofneeds and impulses; and Mona, untutored in the ways of man, was lesscompetent than many.
To her, the words "I love you" were a sacred obligation, far above allselfish needs and vulgar money making and, like the glittering star offame, an inspiration.
It had been sweet to her in those summer days, but the real star of famewas now rising in her horizon, and the lesser one slowly fading away.
She was fast losing her old timidity, and as each day she felt herselfgaining a better mastery over her violin, the darling wish of her newambition grew stronger.
And then another influence came to her aid, for phlegmatic Fritz, inwhose life the mechanical duty of each evening's playing and theconvivial hours with his cronies had measured his ambition, becameimbued with a broader one, and that to train his pupil for publicplaying, and so, when thus fitted and launched in th
is new life underhis tuition, to pose as the discoverer of a genius. And more than that,as her eyes began to work their spell upon him, the hope of love enteredhis heart.
"Ah, Mees Hutton," he would say to her, when her lesson had beenrendered, "you haf der spirit, der soul of der blaying alretty yet, andsome day you haf him and der vorld vill listen entranced;" and hislittle eyes would twinkle and rotund face glow with an enthusiasm thatwas like wine to Mona.
And now another brand of fuel was added to the fire of her ambition, fora great singer's appearance in the city was heralded in the press andJess, already warped into the world's ways of dress and amusement, tookMona and her mother to hear this operatic star. They had already visitedmost of the theatres, and though Mona had felt a constant dread ofmeeting one, the sight of whose face she knew would seem like a knifethrust, she was gradually overcoming that. At first a timid girl andstranger to the city ways, her keen and ready observation of them hadmade rapid change in her self-possession. Then, too, the difference inher own and her mother's wardrobe had been a help, for Jess had sparedno money in his new role of husband and father, and so far as dress wentwith all three, no observer would realize that they came from anout-of-the-way island, where garb and deportment were unknown factors inlife.
But that evening at the opera, with all its attendant excitement ofrichly gowned womankind whose decollete costumes and sparkling jewelsbecame a revelation to Mona, the handsome men, the exquisite music, thewonderful singing, and the chief star, ablaze with diamonds, bowing andsmiling as wreaths and baskets of costly flowers were passed over thefootlights to her, wrought a spell upon Mona as nothing else could havedone. She was amazed, entranced, overwhelmed, intoxicated; and when theseclusion of her own home was reached, the reflective heart-burst offeeling came.
"Father," she whispered, her face aglow, when she was about to give himthe usual good-night kiss, "if I could stand before an audience, as thatsinger did, and thrill them, as she did to-night, I would be willing tolie down and die."
"That's a good speerit," he answered, smiling, his eyes a-twinkle; "butif ye cud do it, ye'd a durn sight better feel ye'd like to live 'n'keep on doin' it, 'n' make 'em pay ye good money, an' pass up flowers ontop o' that." Which sage observation perhaps best illustrates thedifference between a genius and a philosopher.
That night, sleep was slow in reaching Mona's pillow, and when it cameshe dreamed that she was standing before a vast throng and suddenly,impressed by the fear of them, sinking into unconsciousness.
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