Volume Ii Part 25 (1/2)
”'You ought to be told,' said Haak, 'that his whole enjoyment consists in giving lessons--in the way which you now comprehend; and that if I and the other artists were to show any symptoms of under-valuing him or his lessons, he would proclaim to the whole artistic world, in which he is looked upon as a most competent and valuable critic, that we were nothing but a set of wretched sc.r.a.pers; that, in fact, apart from his craze of being a marvellous player, the Baron is a man whose vast knowledge of music, and most cultivated judgment thereon, are matters from which even a master can derive great benefit. So judge for yourself whether I am to be blamed if I hold on to him, and now and then pocket a few of his Louis. I advise you to go to him as often as you can. Don't listen to the cracky nonsense he talks about his own execution; but do listen to, and profit by, what this man--who is most exceptionally versed in the musical art, and has immense and valuable experience in it--has to say about it. It will be greatly to your advantage to do so.'
”I took his advice; but it was often hard to repress laughter when the Baron would tap about with his fingers upon the belly of the fiddle instead of on the finger-board, stroking his bow diagonally over the strings the while, and a.s.severating that he was playing the most beautiful of all Tartini's solos, and that he was the only person in the world who could play it.
”But soon he would lay the violin down, and pour forth sayings which enriched me with the profoundest knowledge, and enflamed my heart towards the most glorious of all arts.
”If I then played something from one of his concertos with my utmost _verve_, and happened to interpret this or the other pa.s.sage of it better than usual, the Baron would look round with a smile of complacence, or of pride, and say: 'The boy has to thank me for that; me, pupil of the great Tartini!'
”Thus, you perceive, I derived both profit and pleasure from the Baron's lessons; and from his ducats into the bargain.”
”Well, really,” said Theodore, laughing, ”I should think that the greater part of the virtuosos of the present day--although they do consider themselves far beyond any description of instruction or advice--would be glad enough to have a few lessons such as the Baron von S---- was in the habit of giving.”
”I render thanks to Heaven,” said Vincenz, ”that this meeting of our Club has ended so happily. I never dared to hope that it would; and I would fain entreat my worthy Serapion Brethren to see that proper measures are taken, in future, that there be a due alternation between the terrifying and the entertaining, which on this occasion has by no means been the case.”
”This admonition of yours,” Ottmar said, ”is right and proper; but it rested with yourself to rectify the error into which we have fallen to-night by contributing something of your own, in your special style of humour.”
”The truth is,” said Lothair, ”that you, my very fine fellow--and at the same time my very lazy-as-to-writing fellow--have never yet paid your entrance-money into the Serapion Guild, and the only mode of payment is a Serapiontic story.”
”Hus.h.!.+” cried Vincenz. ”You don't know what has come glowing forth from my heart, and is nestling in this breast-pocket of mine here; a quite remarkable little creature of a story, which I specially commend to the favour of our Lothair. I should have read it to you to-night. But don't you see the landlord's pale face peeping in at the window every now and then, just in the style in which the uncle Kuehleborn, in Fouque's 'Undine,' used to 'keek' in at the window of the fisherman's hut.
Haven't you noticed the irritated 'Oh, Jemini!' countenance of the waiter? Was there not written on his forehead, legibly and distinctly (when he snuffed the candles), 'Are you going to sit here for ever? Are you never going to let an honest man get to his well-earned bed?' Those people are right. It is past twelve: our parting hour has struck some time ago.”
The friends agreed to have another Serapiontic meeting at an early date, and dispersed.
SECTION VII.
The dreary late autumn had arrived, and Theodore was sitting in his room beside the crackling fire, waiting for the worthy Serapion Brethren, who came dropping in, one by one, at the appointed hour.
”What diabolical weather!” cried Cyprian, entering the last. ”In spite of my cloak I am nearly wet through, and a gust of wind all but carried away my hat.”
”And it won't be better very soon,” said Ottmar; ”for our meteorologist, who lives in the same street with me, has prognosticated very fine weather at the end of this autumn.”
”Right; you are perfectly right, my friend Ottmar,” Vincenz said.
”Whenever our great prophet consoles his neighbours with the announcement that the winter is not going to be at all severe, but princ.i.p.ally of a southerly character, everybody rushes away in alarm, and buys all the wood he can cram into his cellar. The weather-prophet is a wise and highly-gifted man, whom we can thoroughly trust, so long as we expect the exact reverse of what he predicts.”
”Those autumnal storms always make me thoroughly wretched,” said Sylvester; ”I always feel depressed and ill whilst they are going on; and I think you feel the same, Theodore.”
”Oh, indeed I do,” answered Theodore; ”this sort of weather always makes----”
”Splendid!--delightful beginning of a meeting of the Serapion Club!”
intercalated Lothair. ”We set to work to discuss the weather, like a parcel of old women round the coffee-table.”
”I don't see,” said Ottmar, ”why we should not talk about the weather; the only reason you can object to it is that talking about it seems to be an observance of a kind of rather slovenly old custom, which has resulted from a necessity to say something or other when there happens to be nothing else in people's minds to talk about. What I think is that a few words about the weather and the wind make a very good beginning of a conversation, whatsoever its nature may turn out to be, and that the very universality of the applicability of this as the beginning of a conversation prove how natural it really is.”
”As far as I am concerned,” said Theodore, ”I don't think it matters a farthing how a conversation commences. But there is one thing certain--that, if one wants to make some very striking and clever beginning, that is enough to kill all the freedom and unconstraint which may be termed the very soul of conversation. I know a young man--I think he is known to you all, as well--who is by no means deficient in that mobility of intellect which is absolutely necessary for good conversation; but he is so tormented, particularly when ladies are present, by that kind of eagerness to burst out with something brilliant and striking at the very outset of a talk, that he walks restlessly about the room; makes the most extraordinary faces in the keenness of his inward torment; opens his lips, and--cannot manage to utter a syllable.”
”Cease, cease, base wretch!” Cyprian cried, with comic pathos, ”do not, with murderous hand, tear open wounds which are barely healed. He is speaking of me,” he continued, laughing, ”and he doesn't know that, a few weeks ago, when I insisted on restraining that tendency of mine, which I see the absurdity of, and falling into a conversation in the ordinary style of other people, I had to pay for it by complete annihilation. I prefer telling you all about this myself to letting Ottmar do it, and add witty comments of his own. At a tea-party where Ottmar and I were, there was present a certain pretty and clever lady, as to whom you are in the habit of maintaining that she interests me more than is right and proper. I went to talk to her, and I admit that I was a little at a loss how exactly to begin, and she was wicked enough to gaze at me with questioning eyes. I burst out with 'The new moon has brought a nice change of weather.' She answered, very quietly: 'Oh, are you writing the Almanac this season?'”
The friends laughed heartily.
”On the other hand,” said Ottmar, ”I know another young man--and you all know him--who, particularly with ladies, is never at a loss for the first word of a talk; in fact, my belief is that he has severely thought out, in private, a regular system, of the most comprehensive kind, as to conversation with ladies, which is by no means likely ever to find him left in the lurch. For instance, one of his dodges is to go to the prettiest--one who scarce ventures to dip a sweet biscuit in her tea; who, at the utmost, whispers into the ear of her who is sitting next to her: 'It is very warm, dear;' to which the latter answers with equal softness into her ear: 'Dreadfully, my love;' whose communication goeth not beyond 'Yea, yea,' and 'Nay, nay,'--to go up to such an one, I say, and, in an artful manner, startle her out of her wits, and thereby so utterly revolutionize her very being, in such a sudden manner, that she seems to herself to be no longer the same person: 'Good heavens! how very pale you are looking!' he cried out, recently, to a pretty creature, as silent as a church, just in the act of beginning a st.i.tch of silver thread at a purse which she was working.
The young lady let her work fall on her lap in terror, said she was feeling a little feverish that day. Feveris.h.!.+--my friend was thoroughly at home on that subject; could talk upon it in the most interesting way, like a man who knows his ground; inquired minutely into all the symptoms; gave advice, gave warnings,--and behold! there was a delightful, interesting, confidential conversation spun out in a few minutes.”