Perkins, the Fakeer

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CHOPIN SOCIETY

Molatti was a marvel of beauty that evening. Great as was my prejudice against the girl, I was forced to admit to myself, as we entered the crowded rooms of the Chopin Society, that I had never seen a handsomer creature, nor one more radiant with the joy of life. The glory of youth, the fire of genius were in her eyes. There were many striking faces in evidence that evening, faces full of the subtle charm that the worship of music frequently begets; ugly faces alight with an inward glow, symmetrical faces whose regularity was not insipid; plebeian faces stamped by an acquired distinction; patrician faces warmed by an esthetic enthusiasm; faces that told their story of struggle and defeat, and others that bore the mysterious imprint of success. But there was only one countenance in all that picturesque throng to which my gaze constantly returned, paying unwilling homage to a fascination against which I vainly rebelled. I found it difficult to believe that Tom had never noticed the signorina's wonderful beauty of face and form, that he had always considered her, as he had said, "merely a part of the music."

Mrs. Jack, who had been watching me closely, seemed to read my mind, for she whispered to me teasingly: "Tom'll sit up and take notice to-night, don't you think? She's well groomed and shows blood, doesn't she?"

From Mrs. Jack Van Corlear this was high praise indeed, and Molatti deserved it. The studied simplicity of her low-cut black gown, relieved by a small cluster of diamonds below the neck, harmonized with the quiet arrangement of her luxuriant, dark hair, seemingly held in place by a miniature aigrette of small diamonds. The marmoreal whiteness of her perfect neck and firm, well-rounded arms was emphasized by a sharp contrast. Of color there was none, save for the slight flush of health in her cheeks and the rich, red line of her strong, sensitive mouth.

I glanced at Tom, who stood not far from me, listening to the words of the president of the society, a short, slender, nervous-looking man, whose mobile countenance at that moment suggested the joy of a lion-hunter who has achieved unexpectedly a difficult feat. Tom was pale, and there was a wrinkle in his brow just between the eyes that assured me he was not completely at ease. But he seemed to be wholly indifferent to the presence of Signorina Molatti. That he had not glanced at her since our entrance to the hall I felt quite sure. Was Tom really a great actor? It was a question that was constantly recurring to me, despite the weight of evidence against an affirmative answer.

Presently Tom returned to my side, and Mrs. Jack deliberately stuck a pin into him–or, rather, us.

"Is music antagonistic to manners, Tom Remsen? Go over and speak to Signorina Molatti. It is your duty, sir."

"And my pleasure, Mrs. Jack," said Tom, with a smile that recalled his former self, my Tom of the ante-Chopin days. He left us at once to make his way through the crowd to Molatti's corner.

"I take it, madam, that that is your husband," remarked a deep, low, carefully modulated voice. I turned to find Dr. Emerson Woodruff beside me. "He doesn't look musical."

"No, but he is," Mrs. Jack put in, hastily. "We've heard him play to-night, doctor. He's good for any distance–with something to spare. Mark my words, sir."

"Have you reached any conclusion about the case, Dr. Woodruff?" I whispered, nervously. "Mrs. Van Corlear is right. He was in splendid form just before we left home. He seemed to be delighted at the prospect of astonishing these people. But he had had a curious outbreak. He had remarked, rather wildly, that he was not a musician, couldn't play a note, and was, he believed, suffering from 'demoniac possession.'"

I saw that my statement had made a deep impression on the psychologist. His face was very grave as he watched Tom, who stood beside Molatti, evidently conversing with her with more vivacity than I had ever seen him display before.

"He's a phlegmatic, well-balanced man, in perfect health," muttered the doctor, musingly. "I am inclined to think," he went on, addressing me directly, "that your husband's case, madam, is the most remarkable that has ever come under my personal observation. I am very anxious to hear–and see–him play before saying anything further about it. You feel sure that he intends to perform to-night?"

Before I could answer this question I found myself beset by the fussy little president of the society, who appeared to believe that he owed me a great debt of gratitude.

"I tried to thank Mr. Remsen for coming here–to our so great joy!–but he referred me to you, madam. Oh, how much I owe you! And it is so charming to find the wife of a man of genius wholly in sympathy with his career. It is not always thus, you know, Mrs. Remsen."

I could feel the internal laughter that I knew Mrs. Jack was suppressing behind me. I longed to turn round and glare at her, but I was forced to smile down into the excited face of the Chopin enthusiast, who, ex officio, was my host for the evening.

"I trust you will not find Mr. Remsen a great disappointment," I managed to say, weakly. For an instant a hot, almost irresistible inclination stung me to tell this overwrought, undersized bundle of nerves the plain truth, to assure him that Tom Remsen, my husband, couldn't tell a nocturne from a negro lullaby, that he was as ignorant of music as I was of law.

"I am sure," commented the president, politely, "that no disappointment awaits us–rather a great and holy joy. But I regret that our pleasure must be deferred for a few moments. Won't you and your friends find seats, please? I have prepared–at the request of the society–a short paper on 'The Personality of Chopin.' It will take not more than ten minutes for me to read it. After that, Mrs. Remsen, we are to have a most wonderful duet from Signorina Molatti and Mr. Remsen."

The little man disappeared, and I was glad to rest myself in the chair that Dr. Woodruff had found for me. I turned toward Mrs. Jack, who had seated herself beside me. She saw the gleam of annoyance in my eyes as they met hers, but smiled, sweetly.

"Why are you angry with me, my dear?" she whispered. "Am I responsible if nature granted me a sense of humor? You must acknowledge that the situation is amusing–even if it is a bit uncanny."

Tom had seated himself beside Molatti to listen to the president's essay. Presently, I found myself hearkening, with almost feverish interest, to the latter.

"I have thought it well, my friends," the president was saying, "to confine my remarks this evening to Chopin in his great general relations to the world. I shall endeavor to draw a picture of the man rather than of the musician. And first of all, let me quote from Liszt in regard to the master's appearance."

I glanced at Tom. He sat motionless, almost rigid, with a face so lacking in expression that it was hard to believe he had caught the significance of the speaker's words.

"'The ensemble of his person,'" quoted the president, "'was harmonious, and called for no special comment. His eye was more spiritual than dreamy; his bland smile never writhed into bitterness. The transparent delicacy of his complexion pleased the eye; his fair hair was soft and silky, his nose slightly aquiline, his bearing so distinguished and his manner stamped with so much of high breeding that involuntarily he was always treated en prince. He was generally gay; his caustic spirit caught the ridiculous rapidly, and far below the surface at which it usually strikes the eye. His gaiety was so much the more piquant because he always restrained it within the bounds of good taste, holding at a distance all that might tend to wound the most fastidious delicacy.'" To this quotation, the president added a few words from Orlowski: "'Chopin is full of health and vigor; all the Frenchwomen dote on him, and all the men are jealous of him. In a word, he is the fashion, and we shall no doubt shortly have gloves à la Chopin.'"

The president paused, and I saw with consternation that he was glaring at my husband. The cause of this interruption was apparent at once as I shifted my gaze. Tom was rocking back and forth in his chair, shaking with laughter. His effort to keep his merriment in check, to restrain the loud guffaws that seemed to rack his very frame, was painfully in evidence. There was something almost heroic in his endeavor to repress an outbreak that would have been brutally rude. Tom had become the center of all eyes through the president's lack of tact.

"What's the matter with him?" whispered Mrs. Jack, hysterically.

"I don't know," I answered, lamely. "He's had a funny thought. Is he better?" I had turned away from him.

"He's growing worse, I think," answered Mrs. Jack, despondently. "Why doesn't the president go on? There, it's all right. He's quiet now."

Mrs. Jack spoke truly. The president had resumed his lecture, and I turned and saw that Tom was no longer swaying with mirth.

"How did it happen?" I murmured in Mrs. Jack's ear.

"I'm not sure," she whispered, "but I think Molatti touched his hand. Oh, isn't it weird? I can't help feeling it's like breaking a colt."

CHAPTER IX.

AN UNRECORDED OPUS

Whenever a number of men and women whose lives are devoted to some one line of art are gathered together the social atmosphere becomes surcharged with electricity. If one is impressionable, acutely sensitive to an environment, it is best, perhaps, to avoid the haunts of genius. I am inclined to believe that sociologists will investigate eventually the eternal antagonism between Belgravia and bohemia by strictly scientific methods. How large an infusion of genius can be safely sustained by a throng in search of social relaxation it would be well to know. One fact, at least, in this connection has been repeatedly demonstrated–as I had learned to my cost–namely, that a social function based on music rests on a powder mine. Belgravia had witnessed an explosion at my recent musical. And now, I felt convinced, bohemia was to undergo a like ordeal.

Tom was at the root of this disquieting conviction. His hysterical attack of wholly irrelevant hilarity, his quick response to Molatti's soothing touch, and now the tense, unnatural expression of his face filled me with painful apprehension. I both craved and dreaded the end of the president's discourse, and my forebodings were darkened by a remark made by Mrs. Jack, who seemed to derive real pleasure from the excitement of the crisis.

"Look at Tom," she whispered. "He's fretful at the post. He'll get the bit in his teeth, presently. Do you see Dr. Woodruff over there? He's taking notes."

Before she had ceased to speak Tom was out of hand and had bolted down the track, as Mrs. Jack would have put it. In other words, he had sprung from Molatti's side as the president ended his discourse and had rushed to the piano at the end of the room. I caught the look of amazement on the president's quaint face, and laughed aloud, nervously. Utterly ashamed of my lack of self-control, I glanced at the crowd surrounding me, but nobody had noticed my touch of hysteria. Every eye in the room was fastened on Tom, who was seated motionless at the piano in an apparently dazed condition. His eyes were closed and the corners of his mouth drawn down. He looked at that moment like the very incarnation of all that was unmusical in the universe. I feared that Mrs. Jack would comment on his ridiculous appearance, but she was kind enough to keep quiet. She told me afterward that my raucous laugh had frightened her.

Suddenly Tom's chin went up, he opened his eyes, fixed them on Molatti's white face, and began to play. Such weird, intoxicating harmonies as filled the room, setting every soul therein athrob with an ecstasy that was close akin to agony, no earthly audience had ever heard before. Men and women were there who had memorized each and every note that Chopin wrote, but there was not among them one who could identify this marvelous improvisation, this strange exposition of a great master in his most inspired mood. It was Chopin, but Chopin unrecorded; his genius in its most characteristic tendency, but raised, as a mathematician would say, to the nth power. It was as if the soul of the composer, dissatisfied with the heritage that he had left to us, had returned to earth to exhibit to his worships the one perfect flower of his creative spirit.

How long Tom played I have never known. I had forgotten all about him before many minutes had passed, losing in my impressionability to music my sensitiveness as the wife of a man misunderstood. There were in the universe only my soul and a throbbing splendor of great music, mighty harmonies that filled all space, magic chords that awakened dim memories of a life long past, filled to overflowing with joy and sorrow, tossing waves of melody that bore me to the stars or sank with me into vast, mysterious realms peopled by gray shadows that I had learned to love.

Presently I felt Mrs. Jack's hand clasping mine. "Don't go to him, dear. He has only fainted," I heard her saying, her voice seeming to reach me from a remote distance. "He was all out, and collapsed under the wire. But it's nothing serious."

Tom had sunk back into Molatti's arms, and his head rested against her shoulder. She had sprung toward him, as I learned later, just in time to save him from a fall. She now stood gazing mournfully down on his white, upturned face, sorrow, pity and, I imagined, remorse in her glance. For an instant a hot rage swept over me, and I strove to stand erect, despite Mrs. Jack's restraining hand.

"Don't make a scene!" she whispered to me, passionately in earnest. "He is in no danger. See, Dr. Woodruff is feeling his pulse."

Even at that awful moment, when I knew not whether Tom was alive or dead. I remember that my mind dwelt for a moment on the tendency of new schools of medicine to cling to old traditions. Of what significance to a psychologist could the rapidity of Tom's pulse be? I heard people all around me talking excitedly.

"Did you ever hear anything like it?"

"I tell you, it's one of the master's posthumous works. I couldn't identify it, but perhaps it was discovered by Remsen."

"That's absurd! Where could he find it?"

"He's better now. See, he opens his eyes."

"I don't wonder he fainted; I was just on the verge of collapse myself."

"Parblen! Chopin à la diable! Non, non, no more pour moi, s'il vous plait!"

"I can now die so vara happy! I hava justa once heard the maestro himself. I hava nothing left for to live."

"Who is this wonderful Remsen? Never heard of him before."

"You'll hear of him again, then. He's the only man living who can interpret the master."

It was, all of it, intolerable. How I hated these chattering idiots, who were making an idol of clay, setting up my poor Tom–who was to me at that moment an object of pity–as the incarnation of their cult, to whom they must pay reverent homage! I longed to cry aloud to them that they had been tricked, that my husband was a sensible, commonplace, lovable man, as far removed from a musical crank as he was from a train-robber or a pirate. All my former love for music seemed to have turned suddenly into detestation, and I longed to get away from this nest of Chopiniacs into the noisy, wholesome atmosphere of the outside world. It seemed to me that nothing could restore my equilibrium but the uproar of the streets and the unmelodious clatter of my coach.

"We must get out of this at once," I said to Mrs. Jack, standing erect and checking the dizziness in my head by an effort of will. I saw that Tom had fully recovered his senses and that he seemed to be actually enjoying the homage the excited throng pressing toward him offered to his vicarious genius. Beside him stood Molatti, her face radiant, as if her mission on earth were to reflect the glory of Tom Remsen's musical miracle.

"We must get out of this," I found myself saying again, as I urged Mrs. Jack toward the exit. "I'll send the carriage back for Tom."

"But it's such bad form to run away like this," protested Mrs. Jack. "What will the president think of us? And Dr. Woodruff! Surely you want to ask him what he thinks of the–ah–case."

But my will for the time being was stronger than hers, and presently we were seated in my carriage, homeward bound, and I was fighting back the hot tears that had rushed to my eyes.

"I–I–don't care what–what Dr. Woodruff thinks about the–the case," I sobbed. "I–I–know what I think about it."