Part 49

"Twas April, and the sky was clear, An east wind blowing keenly; The sun gave out but little cheer, For all it shone serenely. The wayside poplars, all arow, For many a weary mile did throw Down on the dusty flags below Their shadows, picked out cleanly." Etc., etc., etc.

(Isn't it just like Barty to begin a lyric that will probably last as long as the English language with an innocent jingle worthy of a school-boy?)

After dinner, in the evening, it was Lady Caroline's delight to read aloud, while Barty smoked his cigarettes and inexpensive cigars--a concession on her part to make him happy, and keep him as much with her as she could; and she grew even to like the smell so much that once or twice, when he went to Antwerp for a couple of days to stay with Tescheles, she actually had to burn some of his tobacco on a red-hot shovel, for the scent of it seemed to spell his name for her and make his absence less complete.

Thus she read to him Esmond, Hypatia, Never too Late to Mend, Les Maîtres Sonneurs, La Mare au Diable, and other delightful books, English and French, which were sent once a week from a circulating library in Brussels. How they blessed thy name, good Baron Tauchnitz!

"Oh, Aunt Caroline, if I could only illustrate books! If I could only illustrate Esmond and draw a passable Beatrix coming down the old staircase at Castlewood with her candle!" said Barty, one night.

That was not to be. Another was to illustrate Esmond, a poor devil who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering from a like disorder.

As a return, Barty would sing to her all he knew, in five languages--three of which neither of them quite understood--accompanying himself on the piano or guitar. Sometimes she would play for him accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas Barty didn't know a single note, and picked up everything by ear. She practised these accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school-girl.

Then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk about--what had just been read or played or sung, and many other things: the present, the past, and the future. All their old affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by pity on one side, gratitude on the other--and a little remorse on both. And there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and uncertain.

Sometimes l'Abbé Lefebvre, one of the professors at the séminaire and an old friend of Lady Caroline's, would come to drink tea, and talk politics, which ran high in Mechelen. He was a most accomplished and delightful Frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored Balzac--and even owned to a fondness for good old Paul de Kock, of whom it is said that when the news of his death reached Pius the Ninth, his Holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed:

"Mio caro Paolo di Kocco!"

Now and then the Abbé would bring with him a distinguished young priest, a Dominican--also a professor; Father Louis, of the princely house of Aremberg, who died a Cardinal three years ago.

Father Louis had an admirable and highly cultivated musical gift, and played to them Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and Schumann--and this music, as long as it lasted (and for some time after), was to Barty as great a source of consolation as of unspeakable delight; and therefore to his aunt also. Though I'm afraid she preferred any little French song of Barty's to all the Schumanns in the world.

First of all, the priest would play the "Moonlight Sonata," let us say; and Barty would lean back and listen with his eyes shut, and almost believe that Beethoven was talking to him like a father, and pointing out to him how small was the difference, really, between the greatest earthly joy and the greatest earthly sorrow: these were not like black and white, but merely different shades of gray, as on moonlit things a long way off! and Time, what a reconciler it was--like distance! and Death, what a perfect resolution of all possible discords, and how certain! and our own little life, how short, and without importance! what matters whether it's to-day, this small individual flutter of ours; or was a hundred years ago; or will be a hundred years hence! it has or had to be got through--and it's better past than to come.

"It all leads to the same divine issue, my poor friend," said Beethoven; "why, just see here--I'm stone-deaf, and can't hear a note of what I'm singing to you! But it is not about that I weep, when I am weeping. It was terrible when it first came on, my deafness, and I could no longer hear the shepherd's pipe or the song of the lark; but it's well worth going deaf, to hear all that I do. I have to write everything down, and read it to myself; and my tears fall on the ruled paper, and blister the lines, and make the notes run into each other; and when I try to blot it all out, there's that still left on the page, which, turned into sound by good father Louis the Dominican, will tell you, if you can only hear it aright, what is not to be told in any human speech; not even that of Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Erasmus, or Shakespeare; not even that of Christ himself, who speaks through me from His unknown grave, because I am deaf and cannot hear the distracting words of men--poor, paltry words at their best, which mean so many things at once that they mean just nothing at all. It's a Tower of Babel. Just stop your ears and listen with your heart and you will hear all that you can see when you shut your eyes or have lost them--and those are the only realities, mein armer Barty!"

Then the good Mozart would say:

"Lieber Barty--I'm so stupid about earthly things that I could never even say Boh to a goose, so I can't give you any good advice; all my heart overflowed into my brain when I was quite a little boy and made music for grown-up people to hear; from the day of my birth to my fifth birthday I had gone on remembering everything, but learning nothing new--remembering all that music!

"And I went on remembering more and more till I was thirty-five; and even then there was such a lot more of it where that came from that it tired me to try and remember so much--and I went back thither. And thither back shall you go too, Barty--when you are some thirty years older!

"And you already know from me how pleasant life is there--how sunny and genial and gay; and how graceful and innocent and amiable and well-bred the natives--and what beautiful prayers we sing, and what lovely gavottes and minuets we dance--and how tenderly we make love--and what funny tricks we play! and how handsome and well dressed and kind we all are--and the likes of you, how welcome! Thirty years is soon over, Barty, Barty! Bel Mazetto! Ha, ha! good!"

Then says the good Schubert:

"I'm a loud, rollicking, beer-drinking Kerl, I am! Ich bin ein lustiger Student, mein Pardy; and full of droll practical jokes; worse than even you, when you were a young scapegrace in the Guards, and wrenched off knockers, and ran away with a poor policeman's hat! But I don't put my practical jokes into my music; if I did, I shouldn't be the poor devil I am! I'm very hungry when I go to bed, and when I wake up in the morning I have Katzenjammer (from an empty stomach) and a headache, and a heartache, and penitence and shame and remorse; and know there is nothing in this world or beyond it worth a moment's care but Love, Love, Love! Liebe, Liebe! The good love that knows neither concealment nor shame--from the love of the brave man for the pure maiden whom he weds, to the young nun's love of the Lord! and all the other good loves lie between these two, and are inside them, or come out of them, ... and that's the love I put into my music. Indeed, my music is the only love I know, since I am not beautiful to the eye, and can only care for tunes!...

"But you, Pardy, are handsome and gallant and gay, and have always been well beloved by man and woman and child, and always will be; and know how to love back again--even a dog! however blind you go, you will always have that, the loving heart--and as long as you can hear and sing, you will always have my tunes to fall back upon...."

"And mine!" says Chopin. "If there's one thing sweeter than love, it's the sadness that it can't last; she loved me once--and now she loves tout le monde! and that's a little sweet melodic sadness of mine that will never fail you, as long as there's a piano within your reach, and a friend who knows how to play me on it for you to hear. You shall revel in my sadness till you forget your own. Oh, the sorrow of my sweet pipings! Whatever becomes of your eyes, keep your two ears for my sake; and for your sake too! You don't know what exquisite ears you've got. You are like me--you and I are made of silk, Barty--as other men are made of sackcloth; and their love, of ashes; and their joys, of dust!

"Even the good priest who plays me to you so glibly doesn't understand what I am talking about half so well as you do, who can't read a word I write! He had to learn my language note by note from the best music-master in Brussels. It's your mother-tongue! You learned it as you sucked at your sweet young mother's breast, my poor love-child! And all through her, your ears, like your remaining eye, are worth a hatful of the common kind--and some day it will be the same with your heart and brain...."

"Yes"--continues Schumann--"but you'll have to suffer first--like me, who will have to kill myself very soon; because I am going mad--and that's worse than any blindness! and like Beethoven who went deaf, poor demigod! and like all the rest of us who've been singing to you to-night; that's why our songs never pall--because we are acquainted with grief, and have good memories, and are quite sincere. The older you get, the more you will love us and our songs: other songs may come and go in the ear; but ours go ringing in the heart forever!"

In some such fashion did the great masters of tune and tone Discourse to Barty through Father Louis's well-trained finger-tips. They always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self-love! The finger-tips (whosesoever's finger-tips they be) have only to be intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them in a true, reverent spirit. Anything beyond may be unpardonable impertinence, both to the great masters and yourself.

Musicians will tell you that all this is nonsense from beginning to end; you mustn't believe musicians about music, nor wine-merchants about wine--but vice versa!

When Father Louis got up from the music-stool, the Abbé would say to Barty, in his delightful, pure French:

"And now, mon ami--just for me, you know--a little song of autrefois."