“Certainly not,” said the Swan coldly: “and I hope you were not taken in by that very tall story of Leda’s, none of us swans was. But it was generally believed by a population ignorant of biology, and we have been much annoyed by those forward water-nymphs ever since.”
“Don’t take on so,” said Sappho: “but I admit a girl is lucky who lives in antiquity, a taradiddle is as good as coin of the realm.”
“There you have it,” said the Swan indignantly. “Take Semele: she had a happy conceit: she bothered no one.”
They now arrived at the gates of pearl on the crystal shore. St. Peter pulled aside a little shutter and looked out through a grille, a razor in his hand and his face covered with suds. “You are very early,” he observed amiably, “but do come in. I took you for a gentleman who has been too much with us lately. He contributed to the rebuilding of the Delphic oracle, and has always treated the cloth honourably; and then, that loafter Mercury slept late and permitted him to be caught short on the stock exchange. Most unfortunate; and he positively insists that we cover his losses!”
“Very reasonable,” said the Swan, ruffling his feathers. “There is a good deal too much dolce far niente in this place: look at yourself, not shaved at this time of day!”
“I’ve a good mind to grow a beard,” said St. Peter ruefully. “Beatitudes are so frequent now that I have no time to dress for dinner: and here, as you know, we still feel that manna maketh man.”
They entered. Tents of silk covered endless lawns, harps twanged of themselves in the air, so that the blessed should not have to work, for it was an honourable society living entirely on its capital of faith and good works. The Lord, an old-timer, conscious of his rustic origins, sat and listened valiantly to the Earl of Chesterfield, Brillat- Savarin and Vedius Pollio, but he could not keep his eye from glazing, nor his foot from idly waggling.
An angel bore down on Sappho, and politely but firmly took from her fist her pen.
“I can’t write here?” said Sappho, surprised, knowing that the holy are addicted to the Word.
“No,” said the angel, “it is a very old regulation, first imposed by the Lord (God bless him!), who is a writer himself, as you have probably guessed from the number of his writings, both attested and apocryphal, scattered about the earth. The day after Heaven opened, two journalists came here and immediately started rival journals: the interpretations they gave of the Gospels and their disputes under the heads of theophany, theogony and theopathy were so ridiculous and bitter, that the Lord himself was assailed by religious doubt: but he was wisely advised, and since then there has been no literature in heaven.”
“This is very painful to hear,” said Sappho.
“You will get used to it,” said the angel putting the pen back in the Swan’s wing. “Besides, you will soon be perfect, therefore your interpretation of celestial phenomena will be the same as everyone’s, so you will have nothing to say.”
“And I will be perfect!”
“Naturally!”
“I won’t feel any more hunger, toothache, suffocation, ambition, love, the wind, the sun or the sea?”
“Your questions are typically sentimental,” said the angel shrugging his wing.
“But, goodness me, I want to see Eve and love her!”
“This is Thursday,” said the angel. “By Sunday you will be too perfect to love her.”
“Where is she, O, where is she?” cried Sappho, much agitated.
“How do I know?” said the angel. “She earns her living by snakecharming: she is at present, hm, let’s see, in Lesbos. Yes, look through the terrestrial telescope over there on the ramparts, and you’ll see her in Lesbos.”
“In Lesbos!” cried Sappho. “A malediction! And I in heaven! But I must see her for whose charms the whole world was eternally damned by a jealous god.”
Sappho leapt to the platinum wall of heaven, and plunging her glance through the variegated universe, she found the earth’s surface. There, as in a silver mirror, she saw a beautiful and holy face, fair as Psyche’s, passionate as Medea’s, terrible as the Medusa’s, calm as Hera’s, in which the forces of love and self-love, as of life and death, perpetually made war.
“What divinity! What frailty!” said Sappho. The beautiful face seemed to her to cloud. “Something annoys her, some regret her brow, some gnat her bosom, some worm her heel,” said Sappho: “I must go! At that sight a storm of passions so bitter and burning has risen in my breast, that I cannot stay any longer from her side.” And spreading her arms like the albatross as he takes off, she leaped towards the far sea’s polished mirror, into which, in error, she had been gazing.
“There she goes,” said St. Peter with self-possession, putting away his razor. “So much the better. The housing problem is really getting acute here.” He fed to the swans their dragon-flies. “Besides,” he said to the chief Swan, “she would have had no luck with Eve: Eve and Adam are a most devoted couple, they say.”
HALF-ASLEEP, the Salzburg guests looked down at the remote fields and cottages, and speculated among themselves about the nationality, occupation and temperament of the people they saw passing in the middle distance. The Master of the Day, rousing himself, called upon the Musical Critic now, and he pointed to the scene and said:
“That is how I look at life altogether, as a spectator who looks at a vast stage-setting. If you have five minutes to observe a man, from a secret cranny, you will find out a great deal about him. Does he shake his head, loosen his collar, noiselessly gargle his throat and brush back his hair with his hand, does he take out his handkerchief and refold it, button and unbutton his coat? What is the colour of his eyes, hair, skin: what is the quality of the cloth in his coat, and of what cut is the garment? Is he fat or thin? What are his halfdozen tics? Does he peer round, or stand upright facing the way he should go? Does he look into jewellers’ windows, or bars, or banks? Has he a stick or a bag: what paper does he carry? Does he seem to criticise the chiselling of window-sills, or the knot in a tie? Does he stop to see a deflated tyre or to peer in at a closed shop? What is his gait, what his tread? There are a thousand things to observe which will give away the party one votes for and the amount of his bank-balance. And for this reason, I am an inveterate and shameless eavesdropper, I listen at the doors of rooms, I pussyfoot along the corridors, I read private letters and stare at people in their emotion. My own life is too calm for my energy, I suppose that is the reason. At any rate, I chortle over the butt-end of a conversation, and pick up chance remarks uttered as I pass in the street, as loafers collect cigarette-ends: all is there, the wrapping, the sort of tobacco, the evidence of fire, and even a bit of fire left to warm the mouth and bring tears into the eyes. My friends say, that is a lounge-lizard’s philosophy, but it is only a loge philosophy: I am a connoisseur of the things people say in the dark. Last night, for instance—but no, that is too near home, and you will not trust me near you if I listen in, in Salzburg. Let us say, last season, in Paris, I heard such a little conversation in the dark, only one of thousands; I will repeat it to you and tell you no more than I heard.”
The guests, curious to know what secrets people reveal to a professional ear, guilty, themselves of the Musical Critic’s weakness, turned towards the tale-teller, and he began.
The Musical Critic’s Tale
THE LITTLE OLD LADY
“IS it snow? Is it mondschein? Eh?” said the little old lady, ducking and lifting her white, wrinkled face towards her companion.
The stage-trees shone blue, and Mimi staggered through the snow. A young lady in a black lace dress supported by one diamond shoulder-strap, shrugged her shoulders, and her cavalier cast a cold look on the little old lady.
“Ah, ah,” said the latter, “it is all romansch, yes, isn’t it? It is all love this evening! But people would not go unless. Ha, it is commercial, after all.”
The cavalier twitched his elegant shoulder. The old lady’s companion bent her head and whispered.
The
balcony of the Opera-Comique was full. The girl looked beyond the old lady, through the dim light, to the other end of the balcony, and saw a strange troll sitting on the velvet and gold apron of a loge, his aged green mask turned and fixed upon her. The troll very slowly turned his eyes to the seat in front of him, and there sat a fair girl with a long swan neck, an oval head and the face of an old elf; she wore a cream tulle dress, and in it, and in her long, thin, yellow hair, were brilliants. She turned luminous green eyes upon the girl: she laughed up with drawn mouth and rat teeth at the troll. Her jewelled bodice in the dark resembled ribs between which fireflies danced. Presently the troll disappeared, and nothing was there but a green opera cloak hanging over the front of the loge.
The little old lady looked inquiringly at her companion, who turned to the stage. The old lady persisted: “Yes, but if Paul was unhappy, he should learn to bear it; he was lonely, ach, we are all lonely. We are all unhappy, happiness comes too late.”
There was no response.
“Yes, without fun! Ach, you are yung, you are yung, you don’t understand,” said the old lady, making a face as if she were eating a lemon. The girl laid her hand on the old lady’s arm, but said nothing. “Don’t intervene,” said the old lady on a lower tone, and more doubtfully. There was no reply. The old lady plucked her black dress, and crossed her small boots. She peered up with live brown eyes into her companion’s face, and said somewhat breathlessly: “We were so happy: why should he …? A son is always happy with his mother: he never has anyone to love him as she loves him. A mother’s whole life is her son. My husband—I have forgotten him: my brothers—who are they, strangers? Only my son—twice we were together: I always gave him the best.”
Her companion’s left hand, moving slightly in the folds of her dress, sent a diamond flash through the red dark. The little old lady licked her lips, peered back at the stage, and laughed gaily. “Ah, yes, it is all romansch, but that is to get the young folks. They believe in it—they are little fools, eh?” Her companion smiled. “No, no, without fun, I know; I am old,” said the old lady.
She fell silent. She began again. “Yes, but you know, I would not give my advice. They don’t want their old mother’s advice—she is a little fool, she knows nothing: show me a young man, though, and I show you a fool, pigheaded.”
Her girl companion, bending her head, whispered. The old lady was still: then she took up: “Paul has been unhappy: he has to seek his own mind: yes, yes, he has known his own mind since he was a little one.” She sighed. “He was such a shweet little fellow, you cannot imagine how shweet. People always stopped when I took him out, to look at his great eyes, and hear his smart replies. He was so clever, but so kind: the things he would say, ach, don’t speak of it, and the things he would say, so clever and so shweet. I always dressed him so well, in velvet suits, with a little lace collar. He always had the best.” She sighed again. The cavalier looked impatiently over his shoulder at the little old lady, who looked at him inquisitively.
The little old lady looked at the stage and said: “Romansch, romansch: but it is pretty, and the music is nice.”
The young companion smoothed her dress. “Pretty,” said the old lady. “Did Paul give you that?”
The girl nodded her head and put her finger to her lips. The old lady fingered the stuff, said: “Fine material, very expensive, very coshtly,” and gave her companion a long, appraising look. She turned her eyes to the stage.
She murmured presently: “All children are innoshent, and Paul was so innoshent. He had such friends, you could never guess, and his French, it was so shweet, so perfect. A little gentleman. He was shmarter then, than now. And when I carried him in my arms, the Director of the Metropolitan Opera stopped me one day and said, ‘How d’ye do, gnädige Frau,’ like that, ‘how d’ye do, gnädige Frau,’ for he was a German, but so intelligent! And he said, ‘What a forehead, what eyes—your boy has a soul, he has a fine intelligence: he will be a great man and a scholar’; ach, and so who can tell?” Paul’s mother softly bent her little head where the shadow was thickest, and wiped her old eyes. “Old,” she whispered to herself.
After a while she whispered, nestling against her young companion: “Ach, how Vera loved him at the beginning! Yes, she came to me when she was a little girl, and said: ‘Is not Paul very clever?’ She brought him stamps, she asked me how he was getting on in his music; with such a shweet voice, with such a shweet face; ah, what a pretty little girl! I never saw such a pretty little girl. Twenty years they knew each other, and loved each other, before they were married: it was a real romansch. They were little playmates together.”
Paul’s betrothed was silent.
“She coughed so much; no, that was a tragedy, don’t speak of it! And she got prettier every year; a beauty, no, without fun, a beauty!”
The girl was silent.
“What does Paul say, eh, does he speak about her?” said the little old lady.
The girl nodded her head.
Hastily Paul’s mother continued, as she scratched her dress: “Yes, she loved him, she told me how much she loved him, ach, you cannot imagine how happy they were! Who can tell? Who knows, ach, she thinks she knows, and when she is married, it is not the same man at all: it is all a myshtery!”
The young girl laughed under her breath.
“Ach, don’t tell me,” said the old lady. “It was a great tragedy: there is no happiness in life.” The singing on the stage broke in on her reflections. “And tell me, how much did you pay for these seats?” said Paul’s mother.
The girl shook her head.
“Ach, why must it all be a myshtery?” said the old lady with miniature petulance. “With the yung all must be a myshtery; you are a Narrin, I tell you, it was more than six marks, I guess.” The cavalier turned and frowned elegantly. “Yes, so they look, so let them look at us,” said the old lady. “They sing loud enough for them to hear.” She worriedly folded a pleat in her black dress, and continued softer and softer: “Ah, they look, they look.”
After a while, lost in the memories of her long years, she whispered, lifting her large, old eyes to the girl: “So why should anyone get married? It’s better to be free. There’s many a brilliant woman unmarried, they don’t want to be: they’re better off. Yes, isn’t that?”
The young girl smiled incredulously.
“You are yung: you don’t understand,” said the old lady with the querulousness of a bird. “All the yung want to get married: ach, why do all women want to get married, so quick, so quick.” The little old lady said, lower than the singing, intenser than the ’cello: “This is a world of misery: it’s better for them not to be born: you give them life, do they ask for it?” She reflected. “It’s not right,” said the old lady bitterly.
The young cavalier turned stiffly, and said “Shh!”
The old lady fell silent, and then concluded with: “O, they say, shh! but I make no noise, a little noise, eh? from a little lady!” She chuckled and thereafter was quiet.
The orchestra played the final notes, and the old lady, starting from her reverie, remarked in a gay tone, “Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe, the Frensch say. No, isn’t it?”
So they passed out, and the little old lady, in her little fur coat like a squirrel, went home.
IN the evening the Centenarist began.
THE CENTENARIST’S TALES
ALBERTUS Magnus, the alchemist, invited some friends to dine at his house in the dead of winter; they arrived covered with furs and in masks and scarves. They handed their cloaks to the servants in the hall, and then began to shiver lamentably, for there was no fire in the house, no preparations for company, and no meal was laid out. When they had all assembled in a great dining-hall, the curtains were drawn back and they saw on the snowy lawn, under bare trees covered with icicles, a dinner-table laid out with silver, linen, glass and china and all the accompaniments of a fine meal: but already frost covered the fruit, snow had fallen on the flowers, the plates contained s
now and the napkins had icicles for pendants. The guests were astounded: some laughed, thinking they saw a painted canvas, and others began to lament the madness of Albertus Magnus; then the doors were opened, the wintry blast blew in and the alchemist, in summer clothing, asked his guests to take their seats at the table. The guests felt chagrined and insulted; while some began to move back into the hall where their cloaks were. All began to murmur; on the instant they found themselves at the table, and rooted to their seats: they sneezed and shivered, grumbled, with blue looks, and felt their ears for frost-bite.
Then servants in silk costumes came running, with rolling tables supporting silver dishes smoking hot, with wines and sauces, and the guests fell to, since there was no remedy, to comfort their stomachs.
When the first guest touched his plate they all immediately ceased to shiver, the snow melted, the icicles vanished into the air, the silver and linen shone, the sun sparkled on every surface, the sky was blue, a zephyr carried scents about from the blooming flower - beds, and they heard the sound of the running fountain, and the cries of birds: everything made them believe that they were dining on a fresh lawn on a fine spring day. They drank toasts to Albertus Magnus, who had had news of the phenomenal change of weather and who had arranged to surprise them so agreeably. When their eating, their after-dinner stories and songs were done, they got up and staggered towards the house; a fearfully cold air struck them, blowing out of the unwarmed house, as from a tomb, and they made haste to get into their cloaks and caps, and went out, snapping their fingers, to their carriages, which they found stuck fast in the snow and ice. When Albertus Magnus was asked the meaning of this, he replied that the sun of wisdom shines all the year long on the life of the sage, or some such thing, which was not considered sufficiently illuminating in so dark a day.
The Salzburg Tales Page 33
