Part First
Frau Concert-Meister Altgelt shut the door.A storm was rising, heavy gusts of windSwirled through the trees, and scattered leaves beforeHer on the clean, flagged path. The sky behindThe distant town was black, and sharp definedAgainst it shone the lines of roofs and towers,Superimposed and flat like cardboard flowers.
A pasted city on a purple ground,Picked out with luminous paint, it seemed. The cloudSplit on an edge of lightning, and a soundOf rivers full and rushing boomed through bowed,Tossed, hissing branches. Thunder rumbled loudBeyond the town fast swallowing into gloom.Frau Altgelt closed the windows of each room.
She bustled round to shake by constant movingThe strange, weird atmosphere. She stirred the fire,She twitched the supper-cloth as though improvingIts careful setting, then her own attireCame in for notice, tiptoeing higher and higherShe peered into the wall-glass, now adjustingA straying lock, or else a ribbon thrusting
This way or that to suit her. At last sitting,Or rather plumping down upon a chair,She took her work, the stocking she was knitting,And watched the rain upon the window glareIn white, bright drops. Through the black glass a flareOf lightning squirmed about her needles. “Oh!”She cried. “What can be keeping Theodore so!”
A roll of thunder set the casements clapping.Frau Altgelt flung her work aside and ran,Pulled open the house door, with kerchief flappingShe stood and gazed along the street. A manFlung back the garden-gate and nearly ranHer down as she stood in the door. “Why, Dear,What in the name of patience brings you here?
Quick, Lotta, shut the door, my violinI fear is wetted. Now, Dear, bring a light.This clasp is very much too worn and thin.I’ll take the other fiddle out to-nightIf it still rains. Tut! Tut! my child, you’re quiteClumsy. Here, help me, hold the case while I—Give me the candle. No, the inside’s dry.
Thank God for that! Well, Lotta, how are you?A bad storm, but the house still stands, I see.Is my pipe filled, my Dear? I’ll have a fewPuffs and a snooze before I eat my tea.What do you say? That you were feared for me?Nonsense, my child. Yes, kiss me, now don’t talk.I need a rest, the theatre’s a long walk.”
Her needles still, her hands upon her lapPatiently laid, Charlotta Altgelt satAnd watched the rain-run window. In his napHer husband stirred and muttered. Seeing that,Charlotta rose and softly, pit-a-pat,Climbed up the stairs, and in her little roomFound sighing comfort with a moon in bloom.
But even rainy windows, silver-litBy a new-burst, storm-whetted moon, may giveBut poor content to loneliness, and itWas hard for young Charlotta so to striveAnd down her eagerness and learn to liveIn placid quiet. While her husband slept,Charlotta in her upper chamber wept.
Herr Concert-Meister Altgelt was a manGentle and unambitious, that aloneHad kept him back. He played as few men can,Drawing out of his instrument a toneSo shimmering-sweet and palpitant, it shoneLike a bright thread of sound hung in the air,Afloat and swinging upward, slim and fair.
Above all things, above Charlotta his wife,Herr Altgelt loved his violin, a fineCremona pattern, Stradivari’s lifeWas flowering out of early disciplineWhen this was fashioned. Of soft-cutting pineThe belly was. The back of broadly curledMaple, the head made thick and sharply whirled.
The slanting, youthful sound-holes throughThe belly of fine, vigorous pineMellowed each note and blewIt out again with a woody flavourTanged and fragrant as fir-trees areWhen breezes in their needles jar.
The varnish was an orange-brownLustered like glass that’s long laid downUnder a crumbling villa stone.Purfled stoutly, with mitres which pointStraight up the corners. Each curve and jointClear, and bold, and thin.Such was Herr Theodore’s violin.
Seven o’clock, the Concert-Meister goneWith his best violin, the rain being stopped,Frau Lotta in the kitchen sat aloneWatching the embers which the fire dropped.The china shone upon the dresser, toppedBy polished copper vessels which her skillKept brightly burnished. It was very still.
An air from ‘Orfeo’ hummed in her head.Herr Altgelt had been practising beforeThe night’s performance. Charlotta had pleadWith him to stay with her. Even at the doorShe’d begged him not to go. “I do imploreYou for this evening, Theodore,” she had said.“Leave them to-night, and stay with me instead.”
“A silly poppet!” Theodore pinched her ear.“You’d like to have our good Elector turnMe out I think.” “But, Theodore, something queerAils me. Oh, do but notice how they burn,My cheeks! The thunder worried me. You’re stern,And cold, and only love your work, I know.But Theodore, for this evening, do not go.”
But he had gone, hurriedly at the end,For she had kept him talking. Now she satAlone again, always alone, the trendOf all her thinking brought her back to thatShe wished to banish. What would life be? What?For she was young, and loved, while he was movedOnly by music. Each day that was proved.
Each day he rose and practised. While he played,She stopped her work and listened, and her heartSwelled painfully beneath her bodice. SwayedAnd longing, she would hide from him her smart.“Well, Lottchen, will that do?” Then what a startShe gave, and she would run to him and cry,And he would gently chide her, “Fie, Dear, fie.
I’m glad I played it well. But such a taking!You’ll hear the thing enough before I’ve done.”And she would draw away from him, still shaking.Had he but guessed she was another one,Another violin. Her strings were aching,Stretched to the touch of his bow hand, againHe played and she almost broke at the strain.
Where was the use of thinking of it now,Sitting alone and listening to the clock!She’d best make haste and knit another row.Three hours at least must pass before his knockWould startle her. It always was a shock.She listened—listened—for so long before,That when it came her hearing almost tore.
She caught herself just starting in to listen.What nerves she had: rattling like brittle sticks!She wandered to the window, for the glistenOf a bright moon was tempting. Snuffed the wicksOf her two candles. Still she could not fixTo anything. The moon in a broad swathBeckoned her out and down the garden-path.
Against the house, her hollyhocks stood highAnd black, their shadows doubling them. The nightWas white and still with moonlight, and a sighOf blowing leaves was there, and the dim flightOf insects, and the smell of aconite,And stocks, and Marvel of Peru. She flittedAlong the path, where blocks of shadow pitted
The even flags. She let herself go dreamingOf Theodore her husband, and the tuneFrom ‘Orfeo’ swam through her mind, but seemingChanged—shriller. Of a sudden, the clear moonShowed her a passer-by, inopportuneIndeed, but here he was, whistling and striding.Lotta squeezed in between the currants, hiding.
“The best laid plans of mice and men,” alas!The stranger came indeed, but did not pass.Instead, he leant upon the garden-gate,Folding his arms and whistling. Lotta’s state,Crouched in the prickly currants, on wet grass,Was far from pleasant. Still the stranger stayed,And Lotta in her currants watched, dismayed.
He seemed a proper fellow standing thereIn the bright moonshine. His cocked hat was lacedWith silver, and he wore his own brown hairTied, but unpowdered. His whole bearing gracedA fine cloth coat, and ruffled shirt, and chasedSword-hilt. Charlotta looked, but her positionWas hardly easy. When would his volition
Suggest his walking on? And then that tune!A half-a-dozen bars from ‘Orfeo’Gone over and over, and murdered. What FortuneHad brought him there to stare about him so?“Ach, Gott im Himmel! Why will he not go!”Thought Lotta, but the young man whistled on,And seemed in no great hurry to be gone.
Charlotta, crouched among the currant bushes,Watched the moon slowly dip from twig to twig.If Theodore should chance to come, and blushesStreamed over her. He would not care a fig,He’d only laugh. She pushed aside a sprigOf sharp-edged leaves and peered, then she uproseAmid her bushes. “Sir,” said she, “pray whose
Garden do you suppose you’re watching? WhyDo you stand there? I really must insistUpon your leaving. ’Tis unmannerlyTo stay so long.” The young man gave a twistAnd turned about, and in the amethystMoonlight he saw her like a nymph half-risenFrom the green bushes which had been her prison.
He swept his hat off in a hurried bow.“Your pardon, Madam, I had no ideaI was not quite alone, and that is howI came to stay. My trespass was not sheerImpertinence. I thought no one was here,And really gardens cry to be admired.To-night especially it seemed required.
And may I beg to introduce myself?Heinrich Marohl of Munich. And your name?”Charlotta told him. And the artful elfPromptly exclaimed about her husband’s fame.So Lotta, half-unwilling, slowly cameTo conversation with him. When she wentInto the house, she found the evening spent.
Theodore arrived quite wearied out and teased,With all excitement in him burned away.It had gone well, he said, the audience pleased,And he had played his very best to-day,But afterwards he had been forced to stayAnd practise with the stupid ones. His headAched furiously, and he must get to bed.