Part 7

"No," she answered, "I have very few friends. But surely--Antoine--there must be any number of ladies who would be far better company..."

"I'm too involved with my books, I fear. Studying all the time; preparing lectures--while the ladies run off with younger rakes." He glanced at her with a teasing half-smile. "I'll be thirty-five come February."

Gretchen laughed to hear him say such things. But she was pleased that she had guessed his age so nearly.

"I fear," he continued, "it is my fate to attend concerts alone, and remain unwed all my life."

"Well," Gretchen replied, "there's something sad in that then, is there not? Two studious people nearly of an age, with no other attachments." She looked sidelong at him. "And with Christmas so near..."

"Yes," he agreed, "there is a bit of sadness in that. Have you no family nearby, Gretchen?"

"No, they're ALL in Connecticut--too far to visit this year, and my rooming house would hardly be suitable for inviting them to visit me."

He laughed pleasantly at this. Yet she did not tell him that she was estranged from her parents.

"Besides my family being far away--at twenty-nine, one cannot be forever running home to one's parents, can one?" she asked.

"I do understand that," he said. "Fancy the two of us then, alone for Christmas--it seems rather a shame."

"It does indeed," Gretchen answered looking away. Snow had begun to fall, silently and hesitantly. The flakes, drifting between the empty branches of trees along the avenue, seemed as large as walnuts; as fluffy as eider down.

The professor laid his hand across Gretchen's gloved hand, suddenly holding her fingers delicately beneath his. She smiled at him, looking at his eyes; his mop of black hair, now bedecked with great white snowflakes. They stopped walking for an instant, and she could see the wisps of mist curling away from his mouth as he opened his lips. The street was silent. He took a step toward her and she realized that she was not looking far up into his eyes--he was not so much taller than herself as she had imagined. She thought--suddenly aware of the palpitation of her heart--she found herself hoping he would kiss her. She believed he would kiss her, just then, and she let out her hot breath. Mist escaped her expectant lips on the faintest of breezes.

They stood for a long moment, facing each other until he turned slowly and stepped forward. Gretchen continued walking beside him with her hand upon his arm. They crossed the street and at last were near her rooming house. She looked up at the falling snow against a gray sky; the tangle of branches above them; the misty pools of light beneath the gaslights. She glanced at his serene face, turning, though she continued to walk.

"I believe you almost kissed me back there, did you not Professor?"

"So, it's 'Professor' again, is it?" He smiled the faintest of smiles and looked away down the street. "Miss Haviland, you did not ask to be kissed--back there." She turned quickly in front of him to catch his gaze, so that he had to stop. "Not in so many words," he added, "I mean--you hesitated as much as I."

"Fancy that," she replied with a laugh, and began walking again, swinging her legs gaily, letting her skirt billow.

He touched her hand, draped over his forearm, and she felt the warmth of his fingers through her glove. They walked on beneath bare branches and quietly falling snow. It seemed far too warm for snow--tropical almost, as if the gaslights were warming the whole scene--the whole world. Winter was about to melt--the sun might even rise the next instant and spring would return in a blaze of gold and green with soft rain, the scent of flowers.

"In future, perhaps I shall ask, Professor." She leaned to grip his arm more tightly and whispered. "Perhaps I shall."

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THE HUNGARIAN LIGHTBULB

When the symphony orchestra collapsed in ruin after years spent floating, half-dead near bankruptcy, all the musicians were thrown out of work. At that time nearly everyone was out of work anyway--many of them discovered soup-kitchens and soon found employment at menial tasks. A few--the lucky or the talented, but mostly those with both luck and talent--found other musical work well below stevedore's wages.

Jurgen had tremendous talent but no luck, yet he could not imagine any other life than being a violist. He would not look for non-musical work--everything was unsuitable, and certainly unattractive. He took the little savings he had and went West thinking to find a place less crowded with hungry musicians. Rather than spend his money on transportation he settled on a romantic adventure: he made friends around the freight yards and rode the rails west until he arrived on the outskirts of a comfortably large city with a clean look--and there he decided to make his home. The city was familiar to him, as a professional musician: it boasted a fine orchestra whose conductor, one Laurence Lamonte, frequently found shockingly intimate details of his flamboyant life splashed across the pages of the tabloids.

In River Street, on the wrong side of the tracks, after hours spent walking from the fashionable districts gradually down the economic ladder into a grimy, dilapidated neighborhood, Jurgen found the Charleston Residence Hotel. Brownstone, four stories tall, it had two windows boarded up on the third floor and unmistakable blackened marks from a conflagration that had never been cleaned away. There was a sign in the window advertising a weekly fee he thought he could manage--if the sign was not out of date. It was yellow, curling at the edges, and could hardly be read behind a smudged window laced with years of accumulated cobwebs. It did not seem like a wholesome place--but the price was right so he walked into the tiny lobby.

"Have you any rooms?" he asked. He had his viola case tucked under one arm and his cracked leather valise dangling from the other hand.

A short, bearded and balding man in a brown, pinstriped suit that might once have been new, stood at the front desk. The stub of a stale cigar not two inches long was stuffed between his lips. He cupped a hairy hand to his ear.

"I asked," Jurgen stated in a much louder voice, "whether you have a room to let."

"Yeah, we got a lot of rooms." The man grinned. "How many you want?"

"One will be sufficient, thank you." Jurgen carefully laid out one week's rent on the counter. "This is a week in advance." The man cupped his hand to his ear, and Jurgen was compelled to repeat himself loudly.