Читать книгу Tinker's Leave - Maurice Baring - Страница 6

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Miles went to déjeuner with his new friends the next day. They occupied the whole of the small entresol of the Hotel Bristol.

He arrived punctually at the hotel at half-past twelve, the appointed hour, and was told that if he would kindly wait, “they” would be down directly.

He waited over half an hour, reading the New York Herald, which had been given him by the maid, and a little after one Madame Dashkov burst into the room, with her hat on, saying:

“I am so dreadfully distressed to have kept you waiting so long, but the children have been trying on, and I had to go with them, and they kept us—and Alyosha is only just up.” She rang the bell. “But we will have breakfast at once——”

She called through the bedroom door something in Russian, and from the next room came a small voice answering, “Seychass, seychass,” and presently the old gentleman walked into the room, stately and tidy in his frock-coat, with his spectacles on, and the Revue des deux Mondes in one hand.

“I thought we would miss the Tannhäuser,” Madame Dashkov said. “The concert begins with the overture to Tannhäuser, which I’m sure you think vulgar,” she explained to Miles. “Then there is the Feuerzauber, then the Tristan, the Vorspiel and Liebestod in one, then the Charfreitag, and, I think, the Waldweben and the Funeral March.”

Miles was just beginning to explain that he had never heard Tannhäuser, when the rest of the family burst into the room, all voluble with explanation and counter-explanation, and Madame Dashkov led them into the little dining-room, which was next door.

This breakfast seemed to Miles like the continuation of last night’s supper. The same conversation seemed to be going on in the same headlong polyglot manner. No statement made by any one member of the family was allowed to pass by any other member of the family; the old man assisted patiently at the wordy combats, and every now and then made an ineffectual attempt to smooth matters.

They arrived at the concert in time for the second item. Miles had never heard a note of Wagner in his life. Wagner was a composer whom Aunt Fanny disapproved of. She said he was noisy, and that his operas were “tiresome”.

Miles, who had absolute confidence in her taste and authority, had never thought it worth while to check her opinion himself. So the music he heard that afternoon at the Concert Lamoureux startled him out of his wits. He was not particularly musical, and he had no musical knowledge or training, but he was sensitive to new impressions, and the effect of this music on him was, from the first, overwhelming, and probably far greater than it would have been on a more musical man. All he had heard in the way of opera was Faust, Carmen, and on one occasion Don Giovanni.

The second item of the programme, which happened to be the Fire Music from the Walküre, not only went to Miles’ head like wine, but it filled the cup of his æsthetic sensibility, of all that in his nature was capable of receiving a musical impression, to the brim.

The rest of the concert made no impression on him at all. He sat through it as one in a trance. The prelude and finale of Tristan, the forest whispers of Siegfried, the streaming sunshine of the Good Friday music, the tremendous grief of Siegfried’s funeral, brushed past him like shadows, without reaching him. He was like one possessed or obsessed. The house of his soul was occupied and closed. He was in a whirl—in fact, he did not know where he was, nor what had happened to him. He had never received such impressions before, never known that one could receive such impressions ...

The comments of his friends—the applause of the audience—the arguments between mother, daughter and niece and the others about the interpretation of one of the pieces, all passed by him without his noticing, as if either they or he were in a dream-world.

He was suddenly aware that the concert had come to an end. He would not have been surprised if the world itself had come to an end.

Madame Dashkov asked him to go back to the hotel with them and have tea. He followed obediently, in a cab with the nephew, the daughter (Alexandra), and the niece (Mary), who throughout the drive continued an argument which had begun while the concert was still going on, as to how the interpretation compared with that of Nikisch.

If you had asked Miles to hum a single phrase of what he had heard that afternoon, he would not have been able to do so, not even of the music which he had listened to. Yet, in a sense, it was all there, inside him; and in spite of not being able to recollect or to formulate or reconstruct any of the magic that he knew had touched him, he was aware, intensely aware, that something catastrophic had happened in him—nothing would ever be the same as it had been before; something was either broken inside him, or had been added to him, he was not sure which; he felt as if he had been taken out of space, turned inside out, and put back again.... He could not account for nor analyse the process; he only knew that he felt “upset”; as though he had been through a mental shipwreck, rescued from drowning and restored to life, and had “suffered a sea-change.”

All this was going on inside him. Outwardly he seemed to be the same as ever. He answered civilly, although in reality mechanically, the questions that were put to him; he was able to take part in the conversation without anybody noticing that anything odd had happened to him.

The two cabs in which they drove back from the concert arrived together at the hotel, and Madame Dashkov at once ordered tea and offered Miles a cigarette. She was smoking hard.

The musical argument proceeded, and Madame Dashkov silenced her rebellious daughter and revolutionary niece by invoking the authority of Liszt himself, whom she had known.

“But Mihal Ivanytch is tired of hearing about music,” she said, when the tea was brought, “and so am I. After a concert like that, after such a treat, I do not wish to argue. I only want to remember and be thankful. You enjoyed it, Mihal Ivanytch, I could see. Mihal Ivanytch,” she explained to the rest of the family, “est très musicien.”

“Yes,” said Miles, “I enjoyed it very much.”

“And to think you will not have the chance of hearing another. Next Sunday there is a still more beautiful concert. But in London you have beautiful concerts. What are they called? I remember the Saturday to Monday Pops, at the St. James’s Hall.”

“I’m afraid they don’t exist any more,” said Miles, “but there are concerts. I’m afraid I have seldom been ... my aunt——”

“But you will now that you are initiated. Fancy, Pierre, Mihal Ivanytch had never heard any Wagner before, not a note; it was his baptême de Feuerzauber!”

“It is a pity,” the old man said, “it was not classical music. I would have given all that we heard to-day for one song from Don Juan or Le Barbier de Séville.”

“I always say that l’un n’empêche pas l’autre,” said Madame Dashkov. “But it is a pity, for every reason, that you must leave Paris so soon,” she said, turning to Miles. “Is it really necessary that you should go? Are you in such a slap-bang hurry?”

“I must get back to my business.”

“But who is the head of your business?”

Miles blushed.

“There isn’t one; at least I suppose I am. I am the head in a way, although my partner is older than I am.”

“Then you can surely take a holiday when you like, for as long as you like?”

“This is the first time I have ever been abroad, except, that is to say, to Madeira, as I told you.”

“Just fancy,” said Mary, with sparkling eyes, “you have never travelled? You have never seen Rome, nor the Mediterranean, nor Switzerland, nor Florence, nor the Alps, nor the Midi, nor the Coliseum, nor the Citronen, nor the Sistine Madonna? never been to Germany? never been to the Philharmonie and heard the music?”

“No; this is my first trip abroad. I’m afraid I’m very ignorant and backward.” Miles blushed again.

“But, if you go away,” Mary asked eagerly, “is there no one whom you could leave in charge of the business for a time?”

“Oh yes, my partner. His name is Saxby. He knows far more about it all than I do.”

“And would you like to travel and see the world, and see pictures, and hear music, and go to the south or the east or the north?”

“There is nothing I should like to do more,” said Miles, with calm conviction, realising, as he thought of Aunt Fanny, how impossible the project appeared to be.

“Have you ever been to Russia?” asked Alyosha.

“No, never. I have been nowhere. I should like to go to Russia,” Miles added, “and to China.”

“Then why don’t you take a year’s holiday,” said Alyosha, “and go there now?”

“But the war——”

“And leave your business,” added his sister, taking no notice of Alyosha, “in the hands of the competent M. Saxon—I am sure that M. Saxon is very competent—très raisonnable—and go and see the world.”

“Yes,” went on Madame Dashkov, “and develop yourself. You are like some one who has been in prison; you need setting free. I am sure you have great possibilities and capabilities. J’ai vu cela tout de suite, n’est-ce pas, Pierre? What you want is Erlösung and Anregung. You must see the world for yourself; it is no life to go every day to the same office. Ce n’est pas une vie. Not a life——”

“I agree,” said Miles; “it is monotonous. I should like to travel, but——”

“But then why not?” asked the younger members of the family in chorus.

“I cannot see why he shouldn’t,” said Madame Dashkov. “N’est-ce pas que j’ai raison, Pierre?”

“Parfaitement raison,” the old man said. “It is natural that Mihal Ivanytch should travel ... the ‘grand tour’ pour se former. One only lives once, one should try and see what one can.”

Miles was not in the least astonished at the younger members of the family urging him to such a course, but to hear their opinions endorsed by the father and mother, by people so much older than himself, took his breath away. That they—grown-up, experienced, respectable people, as old as his Aunt Fanny—should encourage what seemed to him so reckless an act, so fantastic an adventure, seemed almost incredible. Nevertheless, he could not but be affected by the fact.

“But I have relations,” he said.

“How many?” asked Alexandra.

“Well, there is my aunt. I live with her.”

“Is she very old?”

“Oh no.”

“She doesn’t want taking care of?”

“Oh no.” He laughed. The idea of anybody wanting to take care of Aunt Fanny tickled him. “She can take care of herself very well, and she has a house in the country and——”

“And plenty of friends?”

“Yes, and relations.”

“Ah, I knew it!”

“But do you like your business?” asked Mary.

“I don’t mind it.”

“You just go to a counter every day, and sign letters?”

“Not exactly a counter, but that’s more or less what happens.”

“And you have done that for how long?”

“About seven years.”

“And never had a holiday?” asked Madame Dashkov.

“I have always had holidays at Christmas and Easter, and in the summer. We go to the country.”

“Cela ne compte pas. You must certainly take a very long holiday at once,” said Madame Dashkov. “You must see the world, especially Italy and Germany—Italy for pictures and Germany for music. N’est-ce pas, Pierre?”

“If I were Mihal Ivanytch,” said the older man, “I would certainly travel, and perhaps leave the business in the meanwhile to the partner. One only lives once,” he added sadly.

“Yes,” said Alyosha, who had been silent up to that moment, “and it’s no use travelling when one’s old.”

“But I don’t care for travelling alone,” said Miles.

“You can come with me the day after to-morrow. I am going to Russia, to Petersburg,” said Alyosha.

“C’est une excellente idée,” said Madame Dashkov. “It will do you both good.”

“But I’m afraid,” said Miles, “that if I gave up the business for a year, I should have to give it up altogether. I should never be able to go back, if once I lost the habit of going to the City now.”

“And supposing you never did go back, would you be on the pavement?” asked Mary. “Would you starve?”

“Mary, Mary, ne soyez pas si indiscrète,” said her uncle.

“No, I should not starve,” said Miles, blushing. “I do not think it would make any difference to me at all. I have more money than I can spend, anyhow.”

“Then what is to prevent you giving up the business altogether?” asked Mary, with the greatest eagerness.

“Nothing ... except ... except——”

“Le qu’en dira-t-on,” said Madame Dashkov.

“And your relations?” said Mary.

“My aunt would think it odd.”

“My dear boy,” said Madame Dashkov, “it’s you who are going to live your life, and not your aunt. You cannot sacrifice your life to an aunt, however estimable she may be. You must take a long holiday; and if you do not care to go back, you must not go back; and I tell you, you will not care to go back. There are plenty of other more interesting things to do in the world, or not to do. To sit in an office all day when you need not is, for a young man like you, with possibilities, not une vie. You must have leave—leave to live.”

“Yes,” said Mary, with decision, “it is a crime, a waste; you only live once; you are not old, and it is only old men who need to stagnate. Why not give up your business at once?”

“Why not?” said Madame Dashkov.

“There is no reason why he should not,” echoed Alyosha, and the old man nodded.

“Après tout, pourquoi pas?” he murmured.

This was just a question that Miles had never been put, and had never put to himself before. Until that day he would have answered it by saying that it was out of the question. He would not have reasoned; but to-day it was different. He was different. Something had happened to him. Was it the effect of the music, or the company of these strange, friendly people, who seemed to say such unreasonable things so reasonably, and to make them sound so plausible? He did not know. He only felt now that there was indeed no reason why he should go to the office in the City every day for the rest of his life, and play the part of a figure-head. For it was Saxby who did all the work. Miles merely signed letters, read the Bradshaw during office hours, and would pass the time of day with clients, bandying civilities. It was, as Madame Dashkov said, not a life. Well, then—why not?