Читать книгу The Constant Nymph - Margaret Kennedy Kennedy - Страница 10

Jacob Birnbaum stood behind a screen which formed one of the wings in ‘a room in the Vatican’. His intelligent forehead was smothered beneath three tea cosies, placed one upon the other, to form a papal crown. The rest of his person was muffled in an ancient Spanish cope. He made a sufficiently impressive Borgia. Upon the stage the Dodd opera was in full swing and Trigorin was rattling away at the piano. Antonia was dying in as Latin a manner as she could compass, her long hair trailing over the shoulder of Roberto, who made a most polite little cardinal, in Kate’s red dressing-gown. He supported the poisoned lady as she swung through her final swift, suave, heart-rending air, and when she had breathed her last put her on the floor almost at Birnbaum’s feet. She lay there very pink and pleased with herself, her eyes tightly shut in an innocent attempt to look convincingly dead.

The man in the wings stared down at her sombrely, his mind ranging back unhappily over all that had befallen the pair of them since that day, scarcely a month ago, when he had looked at her picking freesias in the garden at Genoa and discovered, with a sense of dazed shock, the enchantment of her loveliness and youth. That day had been the beginning of his madness. At the thought of the havoc she had made in his peace of mind he could almost wish that she was really lying dead at his feet. If she were dead she could not be more lost to him. Should this sweet, tormenting thing, that had been his, die and be buried, be thrust away under the mould, he might forget her. But while the living, revengeful spirit which had eluded him gazed upon him with her eyes and mocked him with her tongue he could never hope for tranquillity.

Because she had seemed to promise Paradise, and because he was accustomed to get what he wanted, he had persuaded her, with promises of lavish entertainment, to come to Munich. The rest of the business had been most pitifully easy. Only, in return, she had made a fool of him; she had opened his eyes so completely to the illusion of all possession that he doubted if he should ever again enjoy anything without an after-taste of bitterness. She had given him none of the bliss he had anticipated; and long before the end of the week he knew that he had made an irremediable mistake, that his need had been for some moment of shared passion, some appeasement of his loneliness, some sign that she returned his feeling. He would gladly have relinquished his brief, unsubstantial victory, if that were possible, for some hint that he was in any way necessary to her happiness. But an implacable remorse told him that by his own folly he had lost her.

Upon the stage Scaramello, the servant, was being instructed to throw her into the Tiber. He picked her up and carried her behind the screen. When he had set her carefully upon her feet she opened her eyes with a laugh which ended abruptly, since she found herself so close to Jacob Birnbaum. Shrinking back she eyed him defiantly, and he, stung by a sudden, unendurable pain, returned her glance with a smile of deliberate insolence which sent her pale with fury. Lewis, watching them, thought that they made a pretty pair; he shuddered a little at them. He did not like to think what dark things must have passed between them at Munich that they should still choose to remain in each other’s company for the sake, apparently, of mutual torment. He turned his back on them and, since his head that day was completely in the clouds, he soon forgot them.

The even flow of his own music pleased and soothed him, but he found that he could not listen to it in a spirit of intelligent criticism. A strange helplessness had come upon him; he knew it for the first stage of a violent seizure of mental and spiritual activity. Very soon he would be thinking desperately, but at the moment he was obsessed and baffled by a vague conception, a form, the outlines of a new thing in his mind. While this veiled idea disturbed his peace he could not think connectedly upon any subject, since he must needs reject every image which was not the right one. He brooded absently – anxious, yet afraid of the moment when his thought should take shape.

Presently Birnbaum had to leave them and join the group on the stage. Lewis, standing with Antonia behind the screen, was jerked out of his absorption and exasperated beyond all reason when he discovered that she was in tears. He whispered fiercely over his shoulder:

‘Stop making that noise, can’t you?’

She felt herself that he ought not to be disturbed when he was listening to his own music, and with a meek gulp she replied:

‘I’ll try. Can you lend me a handkerchief?’

He thought he could. He searched his raiment and at last discovered a very dirty red cotton object which he gave her. Then he turned his back again while she quietly mopped her eyes, until the end of the piece set her free to run away and howl as loudly as she pleased.

He took his call, lost still in his uneasy preoccupation. He climbed on to the stage and bowed to an audience composed of Linda, Susan, Sanger and the village schoolmaster. They crowded round him, and Linda said that she hadn’t known he could write anything so pretty, and Sanger said that he was an amusing fellow. Trigorin clasped his hand in a couple of wet white ones.

‘It is admirable,’ he gasped. ‘You say it is to imitate the Italian opera? I say not. It is inspired by that school … yes … but also it is original. My dear sir, it is a work of genius!’

‘Very good of you to say so,’ replied Lewis, trying to release himself. ‘You played well, Trigorin. I don’t know how you managed to make out my scrawls.’

‘It was a pleasure … an honour. I like it so much. It is so beautiful, that little work. It has the true melody …’

‘Is it an advance on the “Revolutionary Songs”?’ asked Birnbaum, who was listening.

‘But no,’ said Trigorin, shaking his head very seriously. ‘That I cannot say. This I like so much; but the others I like better. They also are the work of genius, but more heavy.’

Lewis looked very much pained and intimated that he himself was inclined to consider ‘Breakfast with the Borgias’ as the most profound effort he had yet made. It was a blow to him, he said, if Mr Trigorin thought it superficial. He had succeeded in reducing his fellow-guest to a perfectly speechless condition of embarrassment and mortification when Linda was heard to ask, in no mean voice, why a part had not been written for Susan.

‘The child can sing in tune,’ she asserted. ‘And I’d like to know why she’s been passed over.’

‘My dear Linda,’ expostulated Albert, ‘one must keep the thing even. We like a high standard in our family productions, but Susan’s level is beyond the rest of us.’

‘I don’t know why you should have such a spite against the poor little thing, I’m sure,’ complained Linda, fondling Susan. ‘As if it matters how a kiddie of that age does things! I don’t see anything so wonderful, come to that, in the way that Lina and Sebastian sang their parts.’

‘There was nothing wonderful,’ said Sanger wearily, ‘except that they had the grace to take pains. If either of them had dared to set up the confounded little pipe which we hear from Susan I’d have stopped the piece. You never did, did you? I daresay not.’

‘I can tell you, Albert, there’s plenty of people think differently. There was a gentleman down in Genoa that heard her sing and he said she was wonderful for her age. He said she’d inherited her talent, and he’d know her anywhere for Sanger’s daughter. He said she’d go very far.’

‘Sanger’s daughter! Heaven and earth! Sanger’s daughter! Isn’t it bad enough to have begotten anything like Susan? I’m ready to swear I never did. And now a gentleman in Genoa says she takes after me! An intolerable insult! Birnbaum! Will you listen to this? A gentleman in Genoa who heard Susan sing … have you heard Susan sing, by the way? You haven’t? Well then you shall. Pop up on to the platform, Sue, and give us a song. Let me see … what did you sing to the gentleman in Genoa? The flower song out of “Faust”? I might have known it. Sing that! I dare say Trigorin will be able to play it for you.’

‘That’s right, dearie, it’s your turn now to sing a bit,’ said Linda, who could not believe that anyone should hear Susan sing and not find her very sweet.

Susan needed no encouragement. She was delighted with any sort of notice. She climbed on to the dais, pushed back her yellow curls, and began to warble in a shallow, sugary treble. Her facility, self-confidence and inaccuracy were on a level with the amazing vulgarity of her performance. She paraded every cheap effect, every little trick, most likely to outrage the pure taste of her relations. And yet there was a certain dash and assurance about her which explained the prophesy of the gentleman in Genoa. Sanger himself was inclined to fear that her push and her unscrupulous showiness would carry her further than the others and establish her as the star of the family. Hence his animosity; he could not bear that she should eclipse the patient, industrious talent of Caryl and Kate, or the fine brilliance of Evelyn’s children. He scowled heavily all through her song.

But she, with a persistent, babyish simper, ignored this, and ignored also the loud retching noises whereby her younger brother and sisters indicated their nausea at the style of her performance. At the end she acknowledged the slightly ironic applause of her elders as though conscious of popularity, jumped down and ran to hide her face in her mother’s lap, a pretty gesture which they had rehearsed in private.

‘Little monkey!’ observed Sanger wrathfully. ‘That’s what I have to put up with. And she’ll disgrace us on every platform in Europe before she’s done. But I shan’t know it. The worms will have me before then, thank God.’

He relapsed into gloom for a little while, and then said:

‘Kate, my dear! Don’t be shy. We’re an indulgent audience and won’t expect a second Susan of you. Couldn’t you oblige us a little? We’ve not heard as much of you tonight as I’d like.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lewis. ‘I’d no idea Kate was turning into such a prima donna, or she should have had more songs of her very own. Do sing, Kate!’

Kate sang and they were all delighted with her. She sang one song after another to meet every taste, and ended with a somewhat ambitious composition of Caryl’s, a setting to the lines:

Du bist wie eine Blume!

which was received by the family with varying appreciation since its sentiment was practically incomprehensible to most of them. At the end of it Lewis began to congratulate Caryl with such fulsomeness, so palpably in imitation of Trigorin, that all the children began to giggle. He was enlarging upon his privileges in being allowed to listen to a first performance of this detestable little work when Sanger, who felt that things were really going too far, went across to Trigorin and began to be civil to him. He praised his reading of the pencil score and explained how much obliged they all were. Trigorin beamed. It was the first conversational opening given to him by Sanger during this whole visit.

‘It was easy,’ he said. ‘Often I must read music that is so badly written. It is very nice, this piece? Yes?’

‘Humph!’ said Sanger. ‘Very pretty fooling. It suited the cast, which was all that was required.’

Trigorin, who had had a cross letter from his wife that morning, thought he saw an opportunity and rushed upon his fate.

‘It is a diversion to write for an artist, sometimes. It is amusing. My wife, she hopes that you will one day write a ballet for her … a little thing …’

Sanger stiffened and shot up his eyebrows.

‘I’m honoured,’ he said. ‘But I don’t suppose I could write a ballet that would suit Madame to save my life. Why not get Birnbaum here to write one? It’s much more in his line.’

‘I did not know …’ began Trigorin doubtfully, looking at the young Jew.

‘You didn’t know that he wrote music? Well, he hasn’t written any yet. But he should. He should! And he owns several theatres. Look here, Birnbaum! Here’s Trigorin wants one of us to write a ballet for Madame. I tell him you’d better do it and produce it at one of your places.’

‘I think that Madame Zhigalova would not be pleased with my work,’ said Jacob. ‘Why does he not do it himself?’

‘I cannot write music,’ said Trigorin sadly.

‘Perhaps you could, if you tried. It is quite easy, is it not, my friend?’

‘Quite,’ said Sanger, returning his grin. ‘Yes; it would be an excellent speculation to write all her ballets yourself, Trigorin.’

‘Don’t listen to them, Mr Trigorin,’ whispered Linda, behind him, ‘they’re just laughing at you.’

The baited man turned round and looked at her and remembered how much kinder she had been than anyone else at the Karindehütte. She dropped her large white eyelids and made a place for him beside her on the window seat For a second he wavered, looking towards the piano where Sanger, Lewis and Birnbaum were talking together; but he knew that they did not want him, so he sat down and surrendered himself to her. She could at least help him to forget his mortification, to his sorrowing spirit she brought an easy forgetfulness, she stirred his pulses and provoked no ideas either of good or of evil.

They embarked upon a whispered conversation full of long significant pauses, as a pair of chess players will hesitate and ponder over the moves of a game. Their common goal was oblivion, escape from their several sorrows. For Linda, despite her placidity, had a sorrow – a sort of composite dread of poverty, insecurity and increasing flesh; a fear of the future which was creeping over her life like a chilly fog; a vision of herself as an enormous old woman, starving to death.

The company meanwhile was breaking up. The schoolmaster took his leave and Lewis, attracted by the moonlight outside, strolled a little way down the hill with him. Sanger and Caryl went upstairs to begin on their night’s work. Birnbaum, straying unhappily through the house, was looking for Antonia, though he did not in the least know what he wanted to say if he found her. He stumbled over the two little girls sitting on the top step of the stairs and asked if they had seen her.

‘She’s in our room, Ike,’ said Paulina. ‘Crying like anything. She’s been crying all the evening.’

‘Crying,’ he repeated, startled, yet a little hopeful. ‘That’s a pity.’

‘She often cries,’ said Teresa without much concern.

‘She’s a regular cry-baby,’ added Paulina.

‘So are you!’ Teresa was moved to retort ‘You both of you roar and yell at the least little thing.’

‘What is she crying for?’ asked Jacob anxiously.

‘Because Lewis wouldn’t let her be Lucrezia Borgia,’ they told him. ‘She was dreadfully hurt because he despised her singing.’

‘So!’ he exclaimed in some disappointment, and took himself off to bed.

‘It’s no use us going up till Tony’s quiet,’ said Paulina.

Teresa said nothing but crouched at the top of the stairs, brooding disconsolately, her thin arms round her knees. Suddenly she had become intensely miserable. She stared down into the darkness of the hall, cut in two by the moonlight which streamed in through the open door. She could not bear it. She jumped up with a little cry of exasperation.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘How I hate it all!’

‘Hate what?’ asked Paulina mildly.

‘Everybody! Everything! I hate the whole world!’

‘Everything does seem horrid this year,’ agreed Paulina sadly. ‘We don’t seem to have the fun we used to.’

‘Good-bye,’ said Teresa, setting off down the stairs.

‘Where are you off to? Are you going out?’

‘Yes! I must get out of this …’

She ran out to hide herself in the mountains, frightened and furious, pursued by a desolate foreboding which seemed to fill the quiet house. As she stumbled up towards the pass she kept murmuring to herelf:

‘I wish I could die! I wish I was dead!’

She knew that she did not mean this; she was not in the least anxious to die. But the violence of such a statement seemed to satisfy her, just as it was a relief to run up hill.