by Conrad Aiken
But no. Not that. My dear Bertha—Bertha my dear—need I explain to you the so very simple fact that after what has happened it will be impossible for us to resume—I mean, impossible for us to live—we must wave away the notion of a shared bedroom. You understand that. Old-fashioned of me, I daresay, but honest. Honest Andrew. What arrangement shall we make. Can we discuss it now quite calmly and sensibly. Shall I take a separate apartment next door. Shall we separate, or is it possible that now—now that this action has freed us—we can come together more usefully on another and perhaps more realistic plane. But not exactly—need I say—the planes of Abraham. No. And strange too that it is still with such a pang, though partly retrospective, and therefore sentimental——
And why was it with excitement, with quickened heartbeat, with unseeing eye, the familiar sensation of the face lowered so as to avoid the impalpable psychological problem, precisely as if it were a thing physically visible, that he approached Memorial Hall in the rain, slowing his steps as he passed Appleton Chapel, and even tempted, as long ago, to make a deliberate circuit of a block or two, for the mere gaining of time? Dismay? fear? doubt? animal distrust of the unknown? Pull yourself together. Enter. Climb the stairs. Ten minutes to eight. Take your seat and look about you.
The brown program in his hand, he climbed the steps to the balcony, found the seat near the parapet, which overlooked the absurd brightly lighted little auditorium of wooden Gothic, which Tom called late Visigothic or early Swiss Chalet, and watched the musicians filing on to the stage. The concert-master, Burgin, came last, and tucked his feet backward under the rung of his chair, as if for leverage when drawing the bow. Like the bird who tightens his claws on the twig, in order to release a particularly fine burst of song. And the squeakings and squawkings and runs and trills began, the grunts of the cellos, the tappings and listenings of the kettle drummer, all the delicious miscellany of tuning—while the audience of dodos and baldheads and wonderfully-bedizened frumps settled, and preened, and cooed at one another, or studied programs through telescopes. But was Bertha here. Was Tom here. Dared he lean over the edge and look. Would he be seen looking.
He looked, and she was not there. Nor Tom. The two seats, in the last row, were empty. But there were still people coming in—along the back—he watched them—and not finding her there, he looked down the aisle into the audience on the floor, where here and there little groups of women stood talking. Who was it who had made a standing bet with some one that if he could find more than three men in any one row of seats—and look at them tonight. Solid phalanxes of females. Aged females. As you progressed forward, toward the stage, solid rows of white hair, with now and then one solitary gleaming baldheaded octogenarian of a professor. Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Echo answers why. What did these creatures care about music, what did it mean to them? O God, O Cambridge.
“Overture to ‘The Magic Flute.’ … Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Born at Salzburg, January 27, 1756; died at Vienna, December 5, 1791. Thirty-six years old.”
Koussevitzky came quickly on to the stage, stepped with mathematical precision to his little dais, ascended, took up his baton, and as the applause drew him, pivoted with choreographic neatness. At precisely that moment, Bertha entered from the door at the far side and walked with quick, short steps, almost running, along the back, her hand clutching the blue velvet cloak against her breast. Alone. And as she dropped into her seat, he leaned over the edge of the parapet and felt that he drew forcibly upwards the surprised gaze that she lifted to him. She started visibly, controlled an impulse to rise again, and while still she looked at him he lifted his program, pointed to it, raised one finger in the air, and then with the waved program indicated the door. She nodded, and the overture began.
The Masonic chords drew themselves out, melancholy, profound, and the sad slow air followed them, the theme that later would be given to the delicious little hurdy-gurdy tune—“Emanuel Johann Schikaneder, the author of the libretto of ‘The Magic Flute,’ was a wandering theater director … poet … improvident, shrewd, a bore.…”
She was very white, she had on the blue velvet opera cloak, and under it the black satin. The white coral necklace. She sat stiffly, as if unseeing, but also as if aware embarrassedly that she was being looked at.
“He asked Mozart to write the music for it. Mozart, pleased with the scenario, accepted the offer and said——”
Why was the overture considered gay, happy—for an undercurrent of sadness ran all through it. Papageno. Papagenesis. The birdcatcher. She was turning her face a little away from him, with a sort of frozen precision, self-conscious and a little evasive, but firm.
“Mozart said—‘I have never written magic music.…’ … Goethe once wrote of the text … Hegel praised the libretto highly … symbolical meanings.”
And now the break, the cessation, the almost imperceptible pause, and then the rapid chatter of the fugue, the sudden sawed-off bursts of fiddle sound, the harsh quick downward scrapes of simultaneous bows, the brave sforzandi followed immediately by the swift twinkle, the delicate pattern, of the fugue, the mouse-dance, of light quick sound——
“Schikaneder knew the ease with which Mozart wrote … knew that it was necessary to keep watch over him … put Mozart in a little pavilion which was in the midst of a garden near his theater … inspired by the beautiful eyes of the singing woman, Gerl.…”
She looked ill. Her face was thinner, her eyes looked larger, were sombered, she was somehow nicer than he had thought her to be, she had been hurt. She was watching Koussevitzky intently, but the way in which her elbows were drawn in at her sides meant that she was conscious of the people who sat at left and right: who, nevertheless, were paying no attention to her.
“Velvet of itself is a natural response to the new quest of lovely ladies for a fabric, luxurious unto the demands of this exacting mode.…” “Schikaneder’s name was in large type on the bill: Mozart’s name was in small type underneath the cast.… Schenk gave Beethoven lessons.… At the end of the Overture, he went to Mozart and kissed his hand. Mozart stroked his admirer’s cheek. Mozart went behind the scenes and saw Schikaneder in his costume of a bird.…”
And now—ah, yes, how lovely—the absurd but magnificent dialogue between god and the little hurdy-gurdy—the majestic chords, the great sweeps of sound, the laws and the prophets, the thunder from the mountain, and then the delicious and ridiculous and so humble bubble and squeak of the clarinets and oboes and bassoons, the birds singing in the rain—and then god again—and again the undaunted little tumbling tune—so childish——
“… Mozart died shortly after the production of ‘The Magic Flute’ in deep distress … this opera was in his mind until the final delirium … he would take his watch from under his pillow and follow the performance in imagination.… ‘Now comes the grand aria’.…”
Her fists doubled under her chin, she leaned forward, as if with an air of saying, look, you see I am even smiling a little, I am amused by all this, you needn’t think I am afraid, or that I’m not an independent person. Nor that I won’t face you bravely.
“The day before he died, he sang with his weak voice the opening measures of ‘Der Vogelfanger bin ich ja’ and endeavored to beat the time with his hands.… Schikaneder, ‘sensualist, parasite, spendthrift’ … built the Theater an der Wien … on the roof he put his own statue, clothed in the feather costume of Papageno. His luck was not constant; in 1812 he died in poverty.”
The Masonic chords again, ascending, altered, but with the same deep sadness; as of trains crying to each other across a wilderness at night; the prolonged and lost nostalgia, the sound of pain abruptly introduced into a scene of festivity, of candles, of minuets, as if coming in on a wind that blew out lights;—and then again the lovely quick fugue, the elf dance, rising and rising to broader and bolder sweeps of sound, the intricate and algebraic pattern—this gesture coming in again, and then that other, the delicious bustle as of lights being religh
ted, servants hurrying with tapers, the music striking up, the dancers reforming——
The blue velvet cloak had slipped from her left shoulder, she sat with her two hands flat on her knees, still leaning forward, but now as if at last the music alone had become real for her, had taken her away; as if she had forgotten the things which had darkened her eyes, and given the new pallor to her cheeks. She was absorbed, she was by herself, she looked young.
“Here the master, wishing, so to speak, to glance back and to give a final model of the old Italian and German overtures with a counterpointed theme, which had served, and still served, as preface to many operas, pleased himself by exhibiting the melodic theme that he had chosen, in all its forms, adorned with the riches of harmony and instrumentation. The result of this marvellous work of the carver is one of the most perfect instrumental compositions ever produced by human genius.” Oh, yes indeed.
And now again god was speaking to the hurdy-gurdy—but this time a kindlier god, less remote; the god stooping from the mountain, gentler and nearer; and the hurdy-gurdy, changed and translated, but still essentially the same, speaking in a bolder and firmer voice—and then god again—as if the two voices greeted each other—and now the beginning of the end, the slow, falling rhythm of the melancholy gaiety—the last downward sweep of Koussevitzky’s arms, of the bows, the held chord, another, the upward flick of the baton, the silence—and then the applause, mounting, mounting, like a storm of rain on gusts of wind——
She had risen from her seat, was looking upward at him for confirmation; he signaled with his program, and turned to move toward the swinging door. The applause dimmed behind him as he descended the stairs and began to cross the lofty marble-paved hall to the other entrance. She emerged, and came toward him, a little self-conscious, her head tilted a little to one side, the rich copper hair gleaming, the silver buckles of her slippers alternately thrust forward, the sharp heels striking clearly on the marble. She stopped, and waited for him, holding the cloak together with her hands. He had thought she was smiling. But when he came close to her, and she made no movement to disengage her hands, he saw that her lips were pressed tight, and that in the widened and darkened pupils of her gray eyes was a curious mingling of defiance and defeat. She was as frightened as himself. He put his hand against her elbow and said——
—Let’s walk up and down here.
—Do you think this was a very tactful way——
—I’m sorry. But what else——
—Everybody in Cambridge saw it——
—Good God, Berty, surely there are more important things——
—It’s typical.
—Not at all. On these occasions one simply obeys one’s instinct, that’s all.
—Is that an excuse for bad manners, or lack of consideration?
—It seemed to me the most neutral way of managing it.
—Perhaps you’re right. But I should have thought——
They walked to the end of the hall in silence, embarrassed, past the rows of sepulchral memorial tablets, the interminable lists of dead soldiers. Antietam. The Battle of the Wilderness. Gettysburg. Bull Run. Born, and died of wounds. Killed in action. Died in a Confederate Prison. Died in Libby Prison, of a fever. Born and Died.
—Is Tom coming.
—No.
They turned, and started slowly back. From Sanders Theater came the sudden sound of renewed music, the beginning of the second number, a fanfare of bright trumpets and a thumping of drums. Muted by distance and the valves of doors.
—Tell me. Did Bill call you up.
—Yes.
—Did he tell you that he was giving me his ticket.
—Yes.
—I see. Just as I thought. He arranged it. You expected me. And you told Tom he’d better not come.
—I told Tom that I thought it would not be advisable.
—For both our sakes, I suppose!
—For all our sakes. I think the sarcasm is uncalled for.
—Sorry. I was only thinking aloud.
Lifting her hand from her cloak, she touched a quick finger to the corners of her eyes.
—I think you might have let me know before, what you were doing, or where you were——
—I wanted to be alone. Surely you understand that.
—Of course I understand it, but just the same I think you might have let me know.
For the first time she turned and looked at him, hesitating, half inhibiting her step, as if she were going to stop, or even going to touch him, as if for the first time she were meeting him. But she averted her face again.
—Andy, you don’t look well.
—Neither do you, Berty, for that matter!
—Isn’t it silly——
—What.
She made a downward gesture with her hand.
—Life. The way we make each other suffer.
—That’s the most sensible thing you ever said.
He found himself holding her elbow quite tightly, and at the same time frowning, as if to control an excess of feeling—but what sort of feeling he could not possibly have said. Not anger, not self-pity.
—There’s a lot of mail for you at the apartment.
—Yes, I thought I’d go round there now—that is, if you’re staying for the concert—and get it. And a few clean shirts. I thought I’d leave before the intermission.
—What are you going to do.
—Do you mean now—or do you mean in general.
—Well—both.
He gazed downward, at the worn and dirty marble of the floor, trodden down by the hungry generations of undergraduates, among whom had been himself, and watched the parallel thrust, preposterous, of Bertha’s slippers and his own mud-splashed shoes.
—I’m damned if I know yet, Berty—doesn’t it really depend on you.
—Not necessarily.
—What I really came for was to say that I thought time—that I thought we ought to take plenty of time——
—Do you think we need any more?
—It sounds weak of me, but I don’t know.
—Do you mean——
—What do you mean!
He stopped, and turned her toward him with his hand, and looked hard at her eyes. The look of defiance had gone, the look of defeat remained. She withdrew her arm from his hand, gently, and resumed the walk, and for a moment they listened in silence to the queer muffled and abortive sounds of the music, walking slowly, both their faces downcast.
—You ought to know. But do you want me to say it first.
—No, Berty. No. No.
—Well, then——
—I think I’ll go away for a few days, if you don’t mind—just to think it over quietly—by myself—I don’t mean anything invidious by it——
—Where are you going.
—To Duxbury. It’s absurd, but I’ve got a queer desire to go there. Not so queer either. It’s all plain enough—I just want to go there.
—Andy——
—What.
—Take me with you. Let me come with you.
—No, Berty, I think it would be better not.
—Please.
—No, really, Berty, if you don’t mind——
—Please.
—No.
There was a strained pause, they faced each other, she had tried to smile.
—And now I think I’ll go—I think it’s better if we don’t talk about it too much yet—will it be all right if I leave you here—I suppose you can’t get into the theater again, until the intermission. But if I’m going to drive down, I ought to be starting——
——Of course, Andy. Run along. I’ll sit on the top steps and listen to it through the door.
—All right. If you’re sure you don’t mind.… Good night.
—Good night.
He turned as he went out, and caught a last glimpse of her climbing the stairs, lifting her frock at the knees. Poor Berty—or was it poor Andy? It had stopped raining. He skirted the edge o
f the College Yard, crossed Massachusetts Avenue, and in the Church Street garage asked for Bill’s car, producing Bill’s note and the key.
—I’m a friend of his.
—Yes, sir. I guess it’s all right. Can you say what kind of a car it is.
—Dodge coupé.
—O. K. I’ll bring her down for you.
So it was all coming out like this—all queerly ending like this—with a humble little anticlimax like this. And what would happen now! Impossible to say. It must be thought of, felt of. And with Tom still there, but now a little farther off——
—Thank you. How is she for oil and gas.
—All set.
—Thanks.
He drove slowly up Church Street, and into Brattle, as if to go to Shepard Hall; but then, suddenly he decided against it. Why go there at all? Why not start at once; merely stopping at the Club for his bag? Yes.…
Turning, he swung the car through Brattle Square, down to the river and across the little arched bridge, and then accelerated as he entered the wide new boulevard. So it was all like this. Bertha was like that. He himself was like—what? A queer confusion, a queer relief, a queer delight. In two hours he would be in Duxbury, would pass the dark rain-soaked railway station, the library, the flagpole. Find a hotel. And in the morning, at sunrise—how absurd it was—he would drive down to the Point, and cross the long bridge, over the rattling boards, and, see the beach again—or even walk to the Gurnett—unless, as was more than likely, he decided to sleep.
For already, to all intents, he had revisited that scene, in this week of so much revisiting—he knew it, every coarse or delicate detail of it—the matted waves of dried seaweed which were wet underneath, the caked salt on the pebbles, the shells, the bleached bones of fishes—the little piles of charred stones, too, on which were written the histories of clambakes—what more, now, could these things say to him? Or say usefully? But it would be good to touch earth. It would be good to touch, for the last time, that agony, and to exorcise it—to drown in it derisively, savagely, or even, at last, indifferently. No, not indifferently—at last with acceptance; as one accepts such simple things as daybreak. Such simple and shattering things as daybreak. The strange and exciting mixture of astonishment and suffering with which—at a moment of discovery—one loses oneself in order to create oneself! The end that is still conscious of its beginnings. Birth that remembers death.