Monsieur Alphonse de Sterny will come to Brussels in November and conduct his Oratoria of "Satan."
This short notice in the Indépendence Belge created a general sensation. The musicians shrugged, bit their lips, and sneered about the public's injustice toward home talent. The "great world,"--between ourselves the most unmusical "world" in the universe,--very nearly stepped out of its aristocratic apathy. This is something which seldom happens to it in artistic matters, but now, for a whole week it talked nothing but de Sterny: of his octave playing a little, and of his love affairs a great deal. In autumn Brussels has so little to talk about!
Alphonse de Sterny had been in his day a great virtuoso and a social lion. Reigning belles had contended for his favor; George Sand was said to have written a book about him, nobody knew exactly which one; the fair Princess G---- was supposed to have taken poison on his account. But five years before the appearance of this notice in the Indépendence Belge, de Sterny had suddenly withdrawn from the world. During that time he had not given any concerts, nor had he produced any new piano pieces, in his well-known style, paraphrases and fantasies on favorite airs.
Now, for the first in that long interval his name emerged, and in connection with an Oratorio!
De Sterny and an Oratorio!
The world found that a little odd. The artists thought it a great joke.
It is November fifth, the day on which the first rehearsal of "Satan" is to be held, under the composer's own direction.
In the concert hall of the "Grand Harmonic" the performers are already assembled. In honor of the distinguished guest half a dozen more gas jets are burning than is usual at rehearsals, yet the large hall with its dark auditorium and the dim flickering light on its stage, has a desolate, ghostly air. A smell of gas, dust and moist cloth pervades the atmosphere.
A grey rime of congealed mist clings to and trickles down the clothes of the latest arrivals. One sees within the hall how bad the weather must be without. The lusty male chorus, with their pear-shaped Flemish faces, their picturesquely soiled linen, and their luxuriant growth of hair, knock off the clay from their boots and turn down the legs of their trousers. The disheveled female chorus, on whose shoulders the locks are hanging out of curl, complain of indisposition, and exchange cough lozenges. The members of the orchestra work away sulkily on their instruments. Across the dissonance of the thrilling fiddles darts the sharp sound of a string that breaks.
Two dilettanti have slipped in by favor. One is a young piano teacher of German extraction, who raves about the music of the future. The other is an amateur, well known in Brussels by the nickname of "l'ami de Rossini."
The instruments are tuned; here and there a violin practices a scale. The gas jets chirp faintly. The male chorus stamp their feet to keep warm, and rub their red knuckles together. De Sterny is letting himself be waited for.
The friend of Rossini makes up to the lady soloists.
"Madame," he says to the Alto, whose engagement at the "Monnaie" he had helped to bring about, "Madame, I pity you. De Sterny is an exponent of this new music of the future. His compositions are among the most ungrateful tasks ever set the human throat. One only needs to sing them to expiate by penance all one's musical pleasures."
"You are too severe, monsieur," said the Alto. "No one can wonder at the 'friend of Rossini' for hating the music of the future, and I grant that some numbers of this Oratorio are quite astonishingly dull. But with some of the others, monsieur, I predict that you will have to confess yourself in sympathy."
"I, confess myself in sympathy with the music of the future!"
"Well, well," said the Alto, soothingly, "up to a certain point I agree with your aversion, but you must grant all the same that Wagner and Berlioz are composers of genius, and that the music of the future has opened new regions of art."
"What has it opened? A parade ground for pretentious mediocrity! I'll grant this much, that Wagner and Berlioz are ill-doers of genius. But the 'school!' and this new invention they call descriptive music! An insurrection of fiddles screaming over against one another! and they give it names. 'Battleo of the Horatii'--'Eruption of Vesuvius'--so that the audience may have something to think about since they can't feel anything, except headache!"
L'ami de Rossini laughed very much at his own joke.
"H'm!-m! and this fine work of de Sterny's," he began again, "I suppose it consists of splendid paraphrases upon poverty of thought."
"The 'Satan' contains pearls which will enchant you," replied the Alto. "But see--here comes de Sterny! I commend the 'Duet of the Outcasts' to your attention."
Followed by the capellmeister and a little group of intimate admirers, Alphonse de Sterny stepped upon the platform. The German pianist started and raised a pair of rapture dilated eyes. De Sterny, who was well accustomed to create that sort of excitement, smiled faintly, threw her an encouraging glance, and nodding to the bowing orchestra took his place before the conductor's desk. Then he let his keen eyes run over the ranks of his musical forces. The violin rows were not even.
"Who is absent?" he asked, pointing to the vacant place.
The violins looked at one another, murmured a name indistinctly, and some one said, "He is excused."
"He is only just out of the hospital," explained the capellmeister, "he often is irregular about rehearsals."
"And you permit that?" asked de Sterny, with his deliberate smile.
"He--he--never spoils anything at the concerts, and I have consideration for him because, because,"--the capellmeister stammered, embarrassed, and stopped short. "But certainly it is an inexcusable irregularity and should be punished," he added.
De Sterny shrugged his shoulders. "Don't disturb yourself," he said, "but next time I hope I shall find my musical forces all together." He rapped on the desk.
His manner of conducting was characteristic. It recalled neither the fiery contortions of Verdi, nor the demoniac energy of Berlioz. His movements at first were quiet, almost weary, his countenance wore an expression of fixed concentration; suddenly his eyes lighted up, his lip quivered, his breast heaved as an exciting climax approached, he raised his arms higher and higher, like wings with which he would wrench himself free from earth; then all at once he collapsed with a look of dejected exhaustion.
"He is killing himself!" sighed the pianist, in a gush of sympathy. But the friend of Rossini said testily:
"He is an incarnate phrase like his own music, and just as full of grimaces!" The introductory figure had confirmed his aversion to de Sterny. "A pretentious fuss!" he muttered grimly, while the pianist with her hand on her heart declared she had "heard the fall of Avalanches!" The figure was repeated and left for future study, and then the Alto laid aside her furs, rose, threw the "friend of Rossini" one glance, drew her mouth into the regulation Oratorio smile, and began.
Upon a somewhat dramatic recitation there followed a meltingly sweet, inexpressibly mournful melody! Yes, really a melody! As simple, genuine and tender as a melody of Mozart, but adapted to the requirements of our modern pain craving ears by a few bitter-melancholy modulations. The friend of Rossini could scarcely believe his senses.
And now with every number,--a few bombastic interludes excepted--the beauties of "Satan" increased until at last at the "Duet of the Outcasts," a duet wherein the whole human race seems to weep for its lost heaven, the orchestra rose and broke into enthusiastic applause. De Sterny shed tears, assured them it was the happiest moment of his life, and the execution of the orchestra surpassed all his hopes, the pianiste fell into raptures, and the friend of Rossini growled, while he mechanically moved his hands in applause, "Where did he get that now? A plagiarism--a mass of plagiarism--but from whence?"
The duet was followed by a really hateful finale, which the more experienced among the musicians forgave for the sake of the Oratorio's otherwise uncommon beauties. The musical craft generally put their envy in their pockets, didn't understand, but made their bows as became them before a great mystery.
Next morning, de Sterny, in the coupe of the Countess C---- drove up the steep street Montague de la Cour. He was going to be served with an exquisite breakfast, by gold laced lackeys, and to let himself be buzzed about by mind perverting flatteries uttered in soft aristocratic voices. Suddenly he saw something that interested--that startled him.
Before one of the large red posters which announced the approaching Oratorio performance, stood a broad-shouldered man with worn-out boots, shabby clothes, and a soft felt hat dragged down over his ears.
A crowd of wagons blocked the way, and the coupe was obliged to stop. Again the virtuoso glanced at the shabby man; this time he saw him in profile. Strange! De Sterny turned pale as a corpse and leaned back shuddering in the soft green satin cushions of the carriage. Could it be that he knew the shabby man, or had known him before the brutalizing stamp of drink had disfigured his face?
Who knows? For the matter of that there was enough in the stranger's appearance to draw a glance and a shudder from any passer-by.
Round shoulders, a loose carriage, a slouching walk, and yet in the whole person and expression of broken-down vigor, and burned-out fire. A handsome face, with somewhat too full red lips, a short nose, powerful brow and eyes, the latter contracting and peering out like those of a wild animal that shuns the light, or like those of a man who will see nothing but the narrow path in which he is condemned to walk, or, perhaps, where he has condemned himself to walk, for life: in the whole countenance the marks of past anguish and present degradation.
Meanwhile the jam has given way, and while C---- cream colors, striking out to regain lost time, bring the great man rapidly up to the countess's palace, the shabby stranger enters one of those butter shops out of which, in the rear, a liquor shop usually opens, and calls for a glass of gin.
Who was he? What was he?
One of those riddles that heaven sends from time to time down to earth to be solved. But the earth occasionally finds the task too difficult and buries the riddle unread in her bosom.
He was born in Brussels, the son of a chorus singer in the theatre "de la Monnaie," and of one of those Hungarian Gipsy musicians, who appear now here now there in the capitals and small towns of Europe, always in bands, like troops of will-o'-the-wisps, carrying on their unwarranted and unjustifiable but bewitching musical nonsense. The mother, Margaretha von Zuylen, she was called, gave the boy the first name of his Hungarian father, who had disappeared before the child saw the light. The Flemish woman's son was named Gesa, Gesa von Zuylen. He had a dark-eyed face, framed by black curls; at the same time he was somewhat rounded in feature, and heavily built, indicating that he was a son of his flat, canal-intersected fatherland. His temperament was a strange mixture of dreamy inertness and fitful fire. The alley in which he grew up was called the Rue Ravestein, and stretched itself crooked and uneven, dirty and neglected, behind the Rue Montagne de la Cour, out toward St. Gudule. The nooks and corners of that region, albeit close to the brilliant centre of urban civilization, have an ill name, are picturesquely disreputable, and quite unrecognized by the good society of Brussels. No carriage can pass here, partly because the alleys are too narrow, partly because their original unevenness--no country in the world has a more hilly capital than flat Belgium--is increased here and there by a few rickety steps. Consequently nearly all the inhabitants extend their domestic establishments into the open air.
The active life and the dirt remind one of southern cities. Decaying vegetables, squirrel skins, paper flowers, old ball gloves, ashes, and other trash make themselves comfortable on the large irregular stones of the pavement, and through the middle slowly creep the dull and stagnant waters of the drain. Long-legged hyena-like dogs, with crooked backs and rough hides, that remind the visitor of Constantinople, belonging to nobody, snuff amongst the refuse; scissors-grinders, and other roofless vagabonds, lie, according to the time of year, in the shade or the sunshine; untidy women in dirty wrappers, with slovenly hair caught up on pins, lean out of windows and carry on endless conversations; others stand in the house doors, a puffy red fist on either hip, and look forth, blinking at time creeping by.
The houses are not alike, some are narrow and tall, some broad and low, as if crowded into the ground by their monstrous red-green roofs. In a few windows are flower pots, others are closely curtained. Small, not particularly tempting drinking shops, with dark red woodwork, on which is written in white letters, "Hier verkoopt men drank," frequently break the rows of dwellings. Any one of these alleys, in Gesa's youth, might have passed for all the rest, only the Rue Ravestein perhaps was still more disreputably picturesque than the others. With the lazy hum of its vagabond life there mingled the sound of the coffin maker's hammer and the sharp stroke of the stone mason's chisel. Against the rear wall of an ancient grey church there leaned an enormous crucifix, and from beneath the time-blackened halo around his head, the Redeemer looked sadly down on the shame and misery that he had not been able to banish from the world. Two narrow church windows mirrored themselves in the waters of the drain, that is, on days when the drain was clear enough.
In these surroundings Gesa grew up. His mother belonged among those females who stood in the house doors and blinked at time creeping by. She was a type of a handsome Fleming, tall, somewhat heavy, with powerful limbs and a red and white complexion. Her red lips parted indolently over very white teeth, a delicate pink played about her nostrils. She had the prominent eyes and the richly waving, luxuriant, tawny hair with which Rubens liked to adorn his Magdalens. When she was not engaged at the theatre, or standing in the house door, she was lounging on her straw bed in the gaunt room, reading robber stories out of old journals, that were bought from an antiquary in a rag shop near by, and circulated from hand to hand among the gossips of the Rue Ravestein.
Lazy to sleepiness, good-humored to weakness, she had ever a caress for Gesa, and a merry frolic for the big grey cat. She lived only in the moment. In the beginning of the month, she fed the boy with dainties, toward the end she ran in debt.
From his earliest youth Gesa was musical. Before he could speak, he would look up with great dark eyes to his mother, enchanted when she rocked him in her arms and sang a cradle song.
A friend of Margaretha taught the little one to play on the violin. Gesa learned extraordinarily fast. The chorus singer's financial condition growing constantly more and more unfortunate, led her to make use of her son's talent, and she actually procured him an engagement, when he was hardly nine years old, in the band of a circus that had erected its temporary booths on the "Grand Sablon," and whose company consisted of an acrobat of conspicuous beauty, a particularly unpleasant dwarf named Molaro, four monkeys and a pony, the height of whose accomplishments it was to stand on three legs, though that might have been due to infirmity rather than art.
Gesa's orchestral duties consisted in supporting, along with an old flutist, the musical disorders of a narrow-chested, long-haired youth, who hammered waltzes and polkas on a tired old spinnet, while at the same time, as he confessed to little Gesa with a sigh, he had vainly longed all his life to be entrusted with the execution of a funeral march!
The circus gave its performances from two to four in the afternoon, and was always empty. While Gesa, behind the orchestra rails, fiddled his simple part mechanically, his childish eyes peered out into the ring beyond. There he saw the acrobat, bedizened in paint and tinsel, with pink tights and green silk hose, a gold circlet on his head, throwing somersaults in the air, and contorting his limber body on a trapeze. He saw the dwarf, with his big red bristly head, and his tights, yellow on one side and blue on the other, making disgusting jokes. The dwarf was always applauded. The little monkeys tremblingly played their bits of tricks. The smell of sawdust, gas, orange peel and monkeys crept into the little fiddler's nostrils, he sneezed. Then he grew sleepy, and his bow stopped. "Allons donc!" wheezed the pianist, stamping his foot. Gesa opened his eyes, and met those of his mother, who sat blonde and phlegmatic at the edge of the ring. She smiled and nodded to him; he fiddled on. When the chorus singer was not hindered by rehearsals at the theatre, she never omitted a performance of the circus. Gesa imagined she came to hear him play.
But one fine day Gesa was rude to the dwarf Molaro, and paid for it with his place in the orchestra. Margaretha, however, still continued a regular visitor at the circus.
And then there came an April afternoon with cold showers of rain and violent blustering wind. Winter and spring waged war without. Gesa, who since he had ceased to have a regular occupation, read incessantly in the knight and robber romances of his mother, sat bent over the faded and tattered leaves of an old journal, completely lost in a tale of terror, both elbows planted on the shaky table and a finger in each ear. Margaretha entered, and came up to him.
"Your supper stands already prepared in the cupboard," she said, stammering and hesitating. "You--you need not wait for me. I shall come home late. Adieu, my treasure!"
"Adieu, mama," said he, indifferently. He was used to her coming home late and scarcely looked up from his reading. She went. Five minutes later she returned.
"Have you forgotten something, mother?" he asked.
"Yes," muttered his mother. She was flushed, and searched about aimlessly, now here, now there. At last she came and bent over the boy, kissed him once, twice, thrice, pressing his head to her breast. "God guard thee," she murmured, and went away. Gesa read on. Presently, he was obliged to brush away something bright that obscured the already indistinct print of the journal. It was a tear of his mother.
Gesa lay down that night as usual, when Margaretha was engaged at the theatre, without fastening the door. When he awoke next morning, he found his mother's bed empty. Frightened he cried "Mother! mother!" He knew she could not hear him; he cried out to relieve the oppression at his heart. Slipping into his clothes he ran down into the street. The gutter, brimming full from the melted snow, quivered in the morning wind. Slanting red sunbeams shimmered in the church windows. A few melancholy organ tones sounded through the grey walls out into the empty street. Gesa wept bitterly. "Mother!" he cried, louder and more pitifully than ever--"Mother!" She had always been kind to him.
He looked up and down. The whole world had grown empty for him. He understood that his mother had deserted him. The children in the Rue Ravestein understand so quickly! A long thin hand was laid on his shoulder. He looked up, beside him stood a gentleman whom he knew. The gentleman lived on the first floor of the house where Margaretha's garret was. He was pale as the Christ on the great Crucifix, and looked down almost as sadly. "Poor fellow!" he murmured, "she has left thee?" Gesa bit his teeth into his under lip, turned very red and shook off the stranger's hand. He felt for the first time that pity can humiliate. The strange gentleman, however, stroked him very softly on the head, and said once more, "Poor fellow! You must not blame her. Love is like that!"
"What is love?" asked Gesa, looking at him steadily.
The stranger cleared his throat. "A sickness, a fever," said he, hastily, "a fever in which one dreams beautiful things--and does hateful ones."
M. Gaston Delileo was the stranger's name, but in the Rue Ravestein they never called him anything but "the sad gentleman,"--the "droevige Herr." He might have been between forty and fifty years old, had a yellow face that reminded one of a carving in old ivory, wore a full beard, and long straight black hair parted in the middle of his forehead. Except in the hottest summer weather he never went on the street otherwise than wrapped in an old dark blue, red-lined Carbonari cloak.
About seven months before, he had moved into the Rue Ravestein, stroked the children's heads, greeted the women in passing, was generally liked and associated with no one.
Before Margaretha's flight she had secretly placed a letter in the otherwise empty letter-box before his door, begging that he would adopt the boy, thereby showing some shrewd knowledge of character in trusting to his benevolence. His wife was dead: his only child, a little daughter, at that time hardly seven years old, was being brought up by relatives in France, as his bachelor housekeeping would have made it difficult for him to give the child proper care. Thus widowed and solitary, afflicted moreover with a great heart that needed love, and had never all his life long been satisfied, he took the boy to himself without any overnice reasoning upon the subject.
"Come to breakfast," he said quite simply, took the orphan by the hand and led him into his own dwelling.
When the meal was over, and while M. Delileo, with that rage for systematizing which often distinguishes especially unpractical people, was bending over his writing table, making out a plan of education, a division of hours, and finally a long list of things which Gesa might possibly need within the next ten years, the boy slipped curiously around in the little room, and examined its arrangement. The furniture was a decayed mixture of stiff, military Empire, and pretentious, crooked Louis-Philippe. On the walls hung a few sketches by once celebrated masters, with dedications "à mon chère ami, etc.," a few poet's autographs in little black frames, and besides these the rapidly executed portrait of a very beautiful woman, in a white satin dress with a great many strings of pearls around her neck, and a little crown on her head. "Is that the queen?" asked Gesa of his new protector.
Whereupon the "droevige Herr," rising up from his occupation, answered, not without a certain solemnity, "That, my child, that was the Gualtieri!"