“I do not often inhabit this den,” said the old gentleman, who had divested himself of his furs, and now showed his thin figure arrayed in the extreme of full dress. A couple of decorations hung at his button-hole. “I seldom come here, and on my return, the other day, I found that the man I had left in charge was dead, with, all his family, and the place has gone to ruin. That is always my luck,” he added, with a little laugh.
“I should think he must have been dead some time,” said Nino, looking about him. “There is a great deal of dust here.”
“Yes, as you say, it is some years,” returned his acquaintance, still laughing. He seemed a merry old soul, fifty years younger than his looks. He produced from a case a bottle of wine and two silver cups, and placed them on the table.
“But where is your friend, the violinist?” inquired Nino, who was beginning to be impatient; for except that the place was dusty and old, there was nothing about it sufficiently interesting to take his thoughts from the subject nearest his heart.
“I will introduce him to you,” said the other, going to one of the valises and taking out a violin case, which he laid on the table and proceeded to open. The instrument was apparently of great age, small and well shaped. The stranger took it up and began to tune it.
“Do you mean to say that you are yourself the violinist?” he asked, in astonishment. But the stranger vouchsafed no answer, as he steadied the fiddle with his bearded chin and turned the pegs with his left hand, adjusting the strings.
Then, suddenly and without any preluding, he began to make music, and from the first note Nino sat enthralled and fascinated, losing himself in the wild sport of the tones. The old man’s face became ashy white as he played, and his white hair appeared to stand away from his head. The long, thin fingers of his left hand chased each other in pairs and singly along the delicate strings, while the bow glanced in the lamplight as it dashed like lightning across the instrument, or remained almost stationary, quivering in his magic hold as quickly as the wings of the humming-bird strike the summer air. Sometimes he seemed to be tearing the heart from the old violin; sometimes it seemed to murmur soft things in his old ear, as though the imprisoned spirit of the music were pleading to be free on the wings of sound: sweet as love that is strong as death; feverish and murderous as jealousy that is as cruel as the grave; sobbing great sobs of a terrible death-song, and screaming in the outrageous frenzy of a furious foe; wailing thin cries of misery, too exhausted for strong grief; dancing again in horrid madness, as the devils dance over some fresh sinner they have gotten themselves for torture; and then at last, as the strings bent to the commanding bow, finding the triumph of a glorious rest in great, broad chords, splendid in depth and royal harmony, grand, enormous, and massive as the united choirs of heaven.
Nino was beside himself, leaning far over the table, straining eyes and ears to understand the wonderful music that made him drunk with its strength. As the tones ceased he sank back in his chair, exhausted by the tremendous effort of his senses. Instantly the old man recovered his former appearance. With his hand he smoothed his thick white hair; the fresh colour came back to his cheeks; and as he tenderly laid his violin on the table, he was again the exquisitely-dressed and courtly gentleman who had spoken to Nino in the street. The musician disappeared, and the man of the world returned. He poured wine into the plain silver cups, and invited Nino to drink; but the boy pushed the goblet away, and his strange host drank alone.
“You asked me for the musician’s name,” he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye, from which every trace of artistic inspiration had faded; “can you guess it now?” Nino seemed tongue-tied still, but he made an effort.
“I have heard of Paganini,” he said, “but he died years ago.”
“Yes, he is dead, poor fellow! I am not Paganini.”
“I am at a loss, then,” said Nino, dreamily, “I do not know the names of many violinists, but you must be so famous that I ought to know yours.”
“No; how should you? I will tell you. I am Benoni, the Jew.” The tall man’s eyes twinkled more brightly than ever. Nino stared at him, and saw that he was certainly of a pronounced Jewish type. His brown eyes were long and oriental in shape, and his nose was unmistakably Semitic.
“I am sorry to seem so ignorant,” said Nino, blushing, “but I do not know the name. I perceive, however, that you are indeed a very great musician, — the greatest I ever heard.” The compliment was perfectly sincere, and Benoni’s face beamed with pleasure. He evidently liked praise.
“It is not extraordinary,” he said smiling. “In the course of a very long life it has been my only solace, and if I have some skill it is the result of constant study. I began life very humbly.”
“So did I,” said Nino, thoughtfully, “and I am not far from the humbleness yet.”
“Tell me,” said Benoni, with a show of interest, “where you come from, and why you are a singer.”
“I was a peasant’s child, an orphan, and the good God gave me a voice. That is all I know about it. A kind-hearted gentleman, who once owned the estate where I was born, brought me up, and wanted to make a philosopher of me. But I wanted to sing, and so I did.”
“Do you always do the things you want to do?” asked the other, “You look as though you might. You look like Napoleon — that man always interested me. That is why I asked you to come and see me. I have heard you sing, and you are a great artist — an additional reason. All artists should be brothers. Do you not think so?”
“Indeed, I know very few good ones,” said Nino simply; “and even among them I would like to choose before claiming relationship — personally. But Art is a great mother, and we are all her children.”
“More especially we who began life so poorly, and love Art because she loves us.” Benoni seated himself on the arm of one of the old chairs, and looked down across the worm-eaten table at the young singer. “We,” he continued, “who have been wretchedly poor know better than others that Art is real, true, and enduring; medicine in sickness and food in famine; wings to the feet of youth and a staff for the steps of old age. Do you think I exaggerate, or do you feel as I do?” He paused for an answer, and poured more wine into his goblet.
“Oh, you know I feel as you do!” cried Nino, with rising enthusiasm.
“Very good; you are a genuine artist. What you have not felt yet you will feel hereafter. You have not suffered yet.”
“You do not know about me,” said Nino in a low voice. “I am suffering now.”
Benoni smiled. “Do you call that suffering? Well, it is perhaps very real to you, though I do not know what it is. But Art will help you through it all, as it has helped me.”
“What were you?” asked Nino. “You say you were poor.”
“Yes. I was a shoemaker, and a poor one at that. I have worn out more shoes than I ever made. But I was brought up to it for many years.”
“You did not study music from a child, then?”
“No. But I always loved it; and I used to play in the evenings when I had been cobbling all day long.”
“And one day you found out you were a great artist and became famous. I see! What a strange beginning!” cried Nino.
“Not exactly that. It took a long time. I was obliged to leave my home, for other reasons, and then I played from door to door, and from town to town, for whatever coppers were thrown to me. I had never heard any good music, and so I played the things that came into my head. By and bye people would make me stay with them awhile, for my music sake. But I never stayed long.”
“Why not?”
“I cannot tell you now,” said Benoni, looking grave and almost sad: “it is a very long story. I have travelled a great deal, preferring a life of adventure. But of late money has grown to be so important a thing that I have given a series of great concerts, and have become rich enough to play for my own pleasure. Besides, though I travel so much, I like society, and I know many people everywhere. To-night, for instance, though I have been in R
ome only a week, I have been to a dinner party, to the theatre, to a reception, and to a ball. Everybody invites me as soon as I arrive. I am very popular, — and yet I am a Jew,” he added, laughing in an odd way.
“But you are a merry Jew,” said Nino, laughing too, “besides being a great genius. I do not wonder people invite you.”
“It is better to be merry than sad,” replied Benoni. “In the course of a long life I have found out that.”
“You do not look so very old,” said Nino. “How old are you?”
“That is a rude question,” said his host, laughing. “But I will improvise a piece of music for you.” He took his violin, and stood up before the broken pier-glass. Then he laid the bow over the strings and struck a chord. “What is that?” he asked, sustaining the sound.
“The common chord of A minor,” answered Nino immediately.
“You have a good ear,” said Benoni, still playing the same notes, so that the constant monotony of them buzzed like a vexatious insect in Nino’s hearing. Still the old man sawed the bow over the same strings without change. On and on, the same everlasting chord, till Nino thought he must go mad.
“It is intolerable; for the love of heaven, stop!” he cried, pushing back his chair and beginning to pace the room. Benoni only smiled, and went on as unchangingly as ever. Nino could bear it no longer, being very sensitive about sounds, and he made for the door.
“You cannot get out, — I have the key in my pocket,” said Benoni, without stopping.
Then Nino became nearly frantic, and made at the Jew to wrest the instrument from his hands. But Benoni was agile, and eluded him, still playing vigorously the one chord, till Nino cried aloud, and sank in a chair, entirely overcome by the torture, that seemed boring its way into his brain like a corkscrew.
“This,” said Benoni, the bow still sawing the strings, “is life without laughter. Now let us laugh a little, and see the effect.”
It was indeed wonderful. With his instrument he imitated the sound of a laughing voice, high up above the monotonous chord: softly at first, as though far in the distance; then louder and nearer, the sustaining notes of the minor falling away one after the other and losing themselves, as the merriment gained ground on the sadness; till finally, with a burst of life and vitality of which it would be impossible to convey any idea, the whole body of mirth broke into a wild tarantella movement, so vivid and elastic and noisy that it seemed to Nino that he saw the very feet of the dancers, and heard the jolly din of the tambourine and the clattering, clappering click of the castanets.
“That,” said Benoni, suddenly stopping, “is life with laughter, be it ever so sad and monotonous before. Which do you prefer?”
“You are the greatest artist in the world!” cried Nino, enthusiastically; “but I should have been a raving madman if you had played that chord any longer.”
“Of course,” said Benoni, “and I should have gone mad if I had not laughed. Poor Schumann, you know, died insane because he fancied he always heard one note droning in his ears.”
“I can understand that,” said Nino. “But it is late, and I must be going home. Forgive my rudeness and reluctance to come with you. I was moody and unhappy. You have given me more pleasure than I can tell you.”
“It will seem little enough to-morrow, I dare say,” replied Benoni. “That is the way with pleasures. But you should get them all the same, when you can, and grasp them as tightly as a drowning man grasps a straw. Pleasures and money, money and pleasures.”
Nino did not understand the tone in which his host made this last remark. He had learned different doctrines from me.
“Why do you speak so selfishly, after showing that you can give pleasure so freely, and telling me that we are all brothers?” he asked.
“If you are not in a hurry, I will explain to you that money is the only thing in this world worth having,” said Benoni, drinking another cup of the wine, which appeared to have no effect whatever on his brain.
“Well?” said Nino, curious to hear what he had to say.
“In the first place, you will allow that from the noblest moral standpoint a man’s highest aim should be to do good to his fellow-creatures? Yes, you allow that. And to do the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number? Yes, you allow that also. Then, I say, other things being alike, a good man will do the greatest possible amount of good in the world when he has the greatest possible amount of money. The more money, the more good; the less money, the less good. Of course money is only the means to the end, but nothing tangible in the world can ever be anything else. All art is only a means to the exciting of still more perfect images in the brain; all crime is a means to the satisfaction of passion, or avarice, which is itself a king-passion; all good itself is a means to the attainment of heaven. Everything is bad or good in the world except art, which is a thing separate, though having good and bad results. But the attainment of heaven is the best object to keep in view. To that end, do the most good; and to do it, get the most money. Therefore, as a means, money is the only thing in the world worth having, since you can most benefit humanity by it, and consequently be the most sure of going to heaven when you die. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” said Nino, “provided a man is himself good.”
“It is very reprehensible to be bad,” said Benoni, with a smile.
“What a ridiculous truism!” said Nino, laughing outright.
“Very likely,” said the other. “But I never heard any preacher, in any country, tell his congregation anything else. And people always listen with attention. In countries where rain is entirely unknown, it is not a truism to say that ‘when it rains it is damp.’ On the contrary, in such countries that statement would be regarded as requiring demonstration, and once demonstrated, it would be treasured and taught as an interesting scientific fact. Now it is precisely the same with congregations of men. They were never bad, and never can be; in fact, they doubt, in their dear innocent hearts, whether they know what a real sin is. Consequently, they listen with interest to the statement that sin is bad, and promise themselves that if ever that piece of information should be unexpectedly needed by any of their friends, they will remember it.”
“You are a satirist, Signor Benoni,” said Nino.
“Anything you like,” returned the other, “I have been called worse names than that in my time. So much for heaven and the prospect of it. But a gentleman has arisen in a foreign country who says that there is no heaven, anywhere, and that no one does good except in the pursuit of pleasure here or hereafter. But as his hereafter is nowhere, disregard it in the argument, and say that man should only do, or actually does, everything solely for the sake of pleasure here; say that pleasure is good, so long as it does not interfere with the pleasures of others, and good is pleasure. Money may help a man to more of it, but pleasure is the thing. Well, then, my young brother artist, what did I say?— ‘money and pleasure, pleasure and money.’ The means are there; and as, of course, you are good, like everybody else, and desire pleasure, you will get to heaven hereafter, if there is such a place; and if not, you will get the next thing to it, which is a paradise on earth.” Having reached the climax, Signor Benoni lit a cigarette, and laughed his own peculiar laugh.
Nino shuddered involuntarily at the hideous sophistry. For Nino is a good boy, and believes very much in heaven, as well as in a couple of other places. Benoni’s quick brown eyes saw the movement, and understood it, for he laughed longer yet, and louder.
“Why do you laugh like that? I see nothing to laugh at. It is very bitter and bad to hear all this that you say. I would rather hear your music. You are badly off, whether you believe in heaven or not. For if you do, you are not likely to get there; and if you do not believe in it, you are a heretic, and will be burned for ever and ever.”
“Not so badly answered, for an artist; and in a few words, too,” said Benoni, approvingly. “But, my dear boy, the trouble is that I shall not get to heaven either way, for it is my grea
t misfortune to be already condemned to everlasting flames.”
“No one is that,” said Nino, gravely.
“There are some exceptions, you know,” said Benoni.
“Well,” answered the young man thoughtfully, “of course there is the Wandering Jew, and such tales, but nobody believes in him.”
“Good-night,” said Benoni. “I am tired and most go to bed.”
Nino found his way out alone, but carefully noted the position of the palazzo before he went home through the deserted streets. It was four in the morning.
CHAPTER XI
EARLY IN THE morning after Nino’s visit to Signor Benoni, De Pretis came to my house, wringing his hands and making a great trouble and noise. I had not yet seen Nino, who was sound asleep, though I could not imagine why he did not wake. But De Pretis was in such a temper that he shook the room and everything in it, as he stamped about the brick floor. It was not long before he had told me the cause of his trouble. He had just received a formal note from the Graf von Lira, inclosing the amount due to him for lessons, and dispensing with his services for the future.
Of course this was the result of the visit Nino had so rashly made; it all came out afterwards, and I will not now go through the details that De Pretis poured out, when we only half knew the truth. The count’s servant who admitted Nino had pocketed the five francs as quietly as you please; and the moment the count returned he told him how Nino had come and had stayed three-quarters of an hour just as if it were an everyday affair. The count, being a proud old man, did not encourage him to make further confidences, but sent him about his business. He determined to make a prisoner of his daughter until he could remove her from Rome. He accordingly confined her in the little suite of apartments that were her own, and set an old soldier, whom he had brought from Germany, as a body-servant, to keep watch at the outer door. He did not condescend to explain even to Hedwig the cause of his conduct, and she, poor girl, was as proud as he, and would not ask why she was shut up, lest the answer should be a storm of abuse against Nino. She cared not at all how her father had found out her secret, so long as he knew it, and she guessed that submission would be the best policy.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 96