Part 37 (1/2)
”Elle dira, lisant ces vers tout remplis d'elle: 'Quelle est donc cette femme?' et ne comprendra pas.”
Without pause she pa.s.sed into a quick staccato and then descended to long-drawn tones, deep and full. ”This is better, but I have never played it for you because that it is Polish, and to make it in English and so sing it is hard. You have heard of our great and good general Kosciuszko, yes? My father loved well to speak of him and also of one very high officer under him,--I speak his name for you, Julian Niemcewicz. This high officer, I do not know how to say in English his rank, but that is no matter. He was writer, and poet, and soldier--all. At last he was exiled and sorrowful, like my father,--sorrowful most of all because he might no more serve his country. It is to this poet's own words which he wrote for his grave that my father have put in music the cry of his sorrow. In Polish is it more beautiful, but I sing it for you in English for your comprehending.”
”O, ye exiles, who so long wander over the world, Where will ye find a resting place for your weary steps?
The wild dove has its nest, and the worm a clod of earth, Each man a country, but the Pole a grave!”
It was indeed a cry of sorrow, the wail of a dying nation, and as Amalia played and sang she became oblivious of all else a being inspired by lofty emotion, while the two men sat in silence, wondering and fascinated. The mother's eyes glowed upon her out of the obscurity of her corner, and her voice alone broke the silence.
”I have heard my Paul in the night of the desert where he made that music, I have heard him so play and sing it, that it would seem the stars must fall down out of the heavens with sorrow for it.”
Amalia smiled and caught up her violin again. ”We will have no more of this sad music this night. I will sing the wild song of the Ukraine, most beautiful of all our country, alas, ours no more--Like that other, the music is my father's, but the poem is written by a son of the Ukraine--Zaliski.”
A melody clear and sweet dominated, mounting to a note of triumph.
Slender and tall she stood in the middle of the room. The firelight played on the folds of her gown, bringing out its color in brilliant flashes. She seemed to Harry, with her rich complexion and glowing eyes, absorbed thus in her music, a type of human splendor, vigorous, vivid, adorable. Mostly in Polish, but sometimes in English, she again half sang, half chanted, now playing with the voice, and again dropping to accompaniment only, while they listened, the mother in the shadows, Larry gazing in the fire, and Harry upon her.
”Me also has my mother, the Ukraine, Me her son Cradled on her bosom, The enchantress.”
She ceased, and with a sigh dropped at her mother's feet and rested her head on her mother's knee.
”Tell us now, mamma, a poem. It is time we finish now our fete with one good, long poem from you.”
”You will understand me?” Madam Manovska turned to Harry. ”You do well understand what once you have heard--” She always spoke slowly and with difficulty when she undertook English, and now she continued speaking rapidly to Amalia in her own tongue, and her daughter explained.
”Mamma says she will tell you a poem composed by a great poet, French, who is now, for patriotism to his country, in exile. His name is Victor Hugo. You have surely heard of him? Yes. She says she will repeat this which she have by head, and because that it is not familiar to you she asks will I tell it in English--if you so desire?”
Again Madam Manovska addressed her daughter, and Amalia said: ”She thinks this high mountain and the plain below, and that we are exile from our own land, makes her think of this; only that the conscience has never for her brought terror, like for Cain, but only to those who have so long persecuted my father with imprisonment, and drive him so far to terrible places. She thinks they must always, with never stopping, see the 'Eye' that regards forever. This also must Victor Hugo know well, since for his country he also is driven in exile--and can see the terrible 'Eye' go to punish his enemies.”
Then Madam Manovska began repeating in her strong, deep tones the lines:--
”Lorsque avec ses enfants vetus de peaux de betes, Echevele, livide au milieu des tempetes, Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah,
”Comme le soir tombait, l'homme sombre arriva Au bas d'une montagne en une grande plaine; Sa femme fatiguee et ses fils hors d'haleine; Lui dire: 'Couchons-nous sur la terre et dormons.'”
”Oh, mamma, that is so sad, that poem,--but continue--I will make it in English so well as I can, and for the mistakes--errors--of my telling you will forgive?
”This is the story of the terrible man, Cain, how he go with his children all in the skins of animals dressed. His hairs so wild, his face pale,--he runs in the midst of the storms to hide himself from G.o.d,--and, at last, in the night to the foot of a mountain on a great plain he arrive, and his wife and sons, with no breath and very tired, say to him, let us here on the earth lie down and sleep.” Thus, as Madam Manovska recited, Amalia told the story in her own words, and Harry King listened rapt and tense to the very end, while the fire burned low and the shadows closed around them.
”But Cain did not sleep, lying there by the mountain, for he saw always in the far shadows the fearful Eye of the condemning power fixed with great sorrow upon him. Then he cried, 'I am too near!' and with trembling he awoke his children and his wife, and began to run furiously into s.p.a.ce. So for thirty days and thirty nights he walked, always pale and silent, trembling, and never to see behind him, without rest or sleeping, until they came to the sh.o.r.e of a far country, named a.s.sur.
”'Now rest we here, for we are come to the end of the world and are safe,' but, as he seated himself and looked, there in the same place on the far horizon he saw, in the sorrowful heavens, the Eye. Then Cain called on the darkness to hide him, and Jabal, his son, parent of those who live in tents, extended about him on that side the cloth of his tent, and Tsilla, the little daughter of his son, asked him, 'You see now nothing?' and Cain replied, 'I see the Eye, encore!'
”Then Jubal, his son, father of those who live in towns and blow upon clarions and strike upon tambours, cried, 'I will make one barrier, I will make one wall of bronze and put Cain behind it.' But even still, Cain said, 'The Eye regards me always!'
”Then Henoch said: 'I will make a place of towers so terrible that no one dare approach to him. Build we a city of citadels. Build we a city and there fasten--shut--close.'
”Then Tubal Cain, father of men who make of iron, constructed one city--enormous--superhuman; and while that he labored, his brothers in the plain drove far away the sons of Enos and the children of Seth, and put out the eyes of all who pa.s.sed that way, and the night came when the walls of covering of tents were not, and in their place were walls of granite, every block immense, fastened with great nails of iron, and the city seemed a city of iron, and the shadow of its towers made night upon the plain, and about the city were walls more high than mountains, and when all was done, they graved upon the door, 'Defense a Dieu d'entrer,' and they put the old father Cain in a tower of stone in the midst of this city, and he sat there somber and haggard.
”'Oh, my father, the Eye has now disappeared?' asked the child, Tsilla, and Cain replied: 'No, it is always there! I will go and live under the earth, as in his sepulcher, a man alone. There nothing can see me more, and I no more can see anything.'