Part 20 (1/2)
”Yes, Father Liszt, because the piano is not in the scheme of Nature.
Even in Society the fewer the pianos the greater the merriment. If the piano were really a thing in Nature the good Lord would have taken at least ten minutes of the seven days and designed a model. But the piano never occurred to Him. Now, as everything, existing or to exist, was foreseen by him, and a part of Him (that is, according to the dogma), I am inclined to think He was afraid of the piano. He recoiled at the responsibility of creating it. And yet the machine exists!
”A syllogism leads us to declare that the piano is an after-thought. Of whom? Why, Satan of course. A grim joke of Satan. The piano is the enemy of man. Liszt finally discovered this, though he was just a little late.
So he will only go to Purgatory, and in Purgatory there are no dumb pianos. But there are organs without pipes, without bellows, and many have pulled the stops in vain for centuries. I earnestly beseech you, my Father, to acc.u.mulate indulgences.
”They tell many stories about the conversions of Abbe Liszt, and how he found out that the piano is the enemy of humanity. Lo, here is the truth. He once gave a concert in a town where there were many dogs. He was then exceedingly absent-minded; he mistook the date and appeared the night before. Extraordinary to relate, there was no one in the hall, although the concert was announced for the next day! Liszt sat down nevertheless, and played for his own amus.e.m.e.nt. The effect was prodigious, as George Sand told us in her Lettres d'un Voyageur. The dogs ran to the noise--curs, water spaniels, poodles, greyhounds--all the dogs, including the yellow outcast. They all howled fearfully, and they would fain have fleshed their teeth in the pianist.
”Then Liszt reasoned--in his fas.h.i.+on: 'Since the dog is the friend of man, if he abominates the piano it is because his instinct tells him, ”the piano is my friend's enemy!”' Professor Jevons might not have approved the conclusion, but Liszt saw no flaw.
”And then a sculptor wished to make a statue of Liszt. He hewed him as he sat before a piano, and he included the instrument. It was naturally a grand piano, one lent by Madame Erard expressly for the occasion.
Liszt went to the studio, saw the clay, and turned green.
”'Where did you get such a ghastly idea?' he asked, and his voice trembled. 'You represent me as playing a music coffin.'
”'What's that? I have copied nature. Is not the shape exact?'
”'Horribly,' said Liszt. 'And thus, thus shall I appear to posterity! I shall be seen hanging by my nails to this funereal box, a virtuoso, ferocious, with dishevelled hair, raising the dead and digging a grave at the same time! The idea puts me in a cold sweat!'
”The sculptor smiled. 'I can subst.i.tute an upright.'
”'Then I should seem to be scratching a mummy case. They would take me for an Egyptologist at his sacrilegious work.'
”Homeward he fled. In his own room he arranged the mirrors so that he could see himself in all positions while he was plying his h.e.l.lish trade. And then salvation came to him. He saw that the machine was demoniacal, that it recalled nothing in the fauna or the flora of the good Lord, that the sculptor was right, that the piano had the appearance of the sure box, in which occurs vague metempsychosis, that is if the box only had a jaw. He was horror-stricken at his past life.
Frightened, his soul tormented by doubt, it seemed to him that from under the eighty-five molars, which he s.n.a.t.c.hed hurriedly from the shrieking piano, Astaroth darted his tongue. He ran to Rome and threw himself at the Pope's feet, imploring exorcism.
”The confession lasted three days and three nights. The possessed could not get to an end. There were crimes which the Pope himself knew nothing about, which he had never heard mentioned, professional crimes, crimes peculiar to pianists, horrid crimes in keys natural and unnatural! This confession is still celebrated.
”'Holy Father,' cried the wretch, 'you do not, you cannot know everything! There are pianists and pianists. You believe that the piano, as diabolical as it is, whether it be a Pleyel or an Erard, cannot give out more noise than it holds. You believe that he who makes it exhibit in full its terrible proportions is the strongest, and that piano playing has human limitations. Alas, alas! You say to yourself when in an apartment house of seven stories the seven tenants give notice simultaneously to the trembling landlord, it makes no difference whether the cause of the desperate flight is named Saint-Saens, Pugno or Chabrier. The tenants run because the piano gives forth all that is inside of it, and the inanimate is acutely animate. How Your Holiness is deceived. There's a still lower depth!'
”Liszt smote his breast thrice, and continued: 'I know a man (or is it indeed a human being?) who never quitted the sonorous coffin until the entire street in which he raged had emigrated. And yet he had only ten fingers on his hands, as you and I, and never did he use his toes. This monster, Holy Father, is at your feet!'
”Pius IX s.h.i.+vered with fright. 'Go on, my son, the mercy of G.o.d is unbounded.'
”Then Liszt accused himself:
”Of having by Sabbatic concerts driven the half of civilised Europe mad, while the other half returned to Chopin and Thalberg.
”('There's Rubinstein,' said Pius, and he smiled.) Liszt pretended not to hear him, and he continued:
”'My Father, I have encouraged the trade in shrill mahogany, noisy rosewood and shrieking ebony in the five parts of the acoustic world, so that at this very moment there is not a single ajoupa or a single thatched hut among savages that is without a piano. Even wild men are beginning to manufacture pianos, and they give them as wedding gifts to their daughters.'
”('Just as it is in Europe,' said the Pope.)
”'And also,' added Liszt, 'with instructions how to use them. Mea culpa!'
”Then he confessed that apes unable to scramble through a scale were rare in virgin forests; that travellers told of elephants who played with their trunks the Carnival of Venice variations; and it was he, Franz Liszt, that had served them as a model. The plague of universal ”pianisme” had spread from pole to pole. Mea culpa! Mea culpa!