Trilby Part 50

the like of her has never been! the like of her will never be again! and yet she only sang in public for two years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'WE TOOK HER VOICE NOTE BY NOTE'"]

"Ach! those breaks and runs and sudden leaps from darkness into light and back again--from earth to heaven!... those slurs and swoops and slides a la Paganini from one note to another, like a swallow flying!... or a gull! Do you remember them? how they drove you mad? Let any other singer in the world try to imitate them--they would make you sick! That was Svengali ... he was a magician!

"And how she looked, singing! do you remember? her hands behind her--her dear, sweet, slender foot on a little stool--her thick hair lying down all along her back! And that good smile like the Madonna's so soft and bright and kind! _Ach! Bel ucel di Dio!_ it was to make you weep for love, merely to see her (_c'etait a vous faire pleurer d'amour, rien que de la voir_)! That was Trilby! Nightingale and bird-of-paradise in one!

"Enfin she could do anything--utter any sound she liked, when once Svengali had shown her how--and he was the greatest master that ever lived! and when once she knew a thing, she knew it. _Et voila!_"

"How strange," said Taffy, "that she should have suddenly gone out of her senses that night at Drury Lane, and so completely forgotten it all!

I suppose she saw Svengali die in the box opposite, and that drove her mad!"

And then Taffy told the little fiddler about Trilby's death-song, like a swan's, and Svengali's photograph. But Gecko had heard it all from Marta, who was now dead.

Gecko sat and smoked and pondered for a while, and looked from one to the other. Then he pulled himself together with an effort, so to speak, and said, "Monsieur, she never went mad--not for one moment!"

"What! Do you mean to say she _deceived_ us all?"

"Non, monsieur! She could never deceive anybody, and never would. _She had forgotten--voila tout!_"

"But hang it all, my friend, one doesn't _forget_ such a--"

"Monsieur, listen! She is dead. And Svengali is dead--and Marta also.

And I have a good little malady that will kill me soon, _Gott sei dank_--and without much pain.

"I will tell you a secret.

"_There were two Trilbys._ There was the Trilby you knew, who could not sing one single note in tune. She was an angel of paradise. She is now!

But she had no more idea of singing than I have of winning a steeple-chase at the croix de Berny. She could no more sing than a fiddle can play itself! She could never tell one tune from another--one note from the next. Do you remember how she tried to sing 'Ben Bolt'

that day when she first came to the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts? It was droll, _hein? a se boucher les oreilles_! Well, that was Trilby, your Trilby! that was my Trilby too--and I loved her as one loves an only love, an only sister, an only child--a gentle martyr on earth, a blessed saint in heaven! And that Trilby was enough for _me_!

"And that was the Trilby that loved your brother, madame--oh! but with all the love that was in her! He did not know what he had lost, your brother! Her love, it was immense, like her voice, and just as full of celestial sweetness and sympathy! She told me everything! _ce pauvre Litrebili, ce qu'il a perdu_!

"But all at once--pr-r-r-out! presto! augenblick!... with one wave of his hand over her--with one look of his eye--with a word--Svengali could turn her into the other Trilby, _his_ Trilby, and make her do whatever he liked ... you might have run a red-hot needle into her and she would not have felt it....

"He had but to say 'Dors!' and she suddenly became an unconscious Trilby of marble, who could produce wonderful sounds--just the sounds he wanted, and nothing else--and think his thoughts and wish his wishes--and love him at his bidding with a strange unreal fact.i.tious love ... just his own love for himself turned inside out--_a l'envers_--and reflected back on him, as from a mirror ... _un echo, un simulacre, quoi! pas autre chose!_.... It was not worth having! I was not even jealous!

"Well, that was the Trilby he taught how to sing--and--and I helped him, G.o.d of heaven forgive me! That Trilby was just a singing-machine--an organ to play upon--an instrument of music--a Stradivarius--a flexible flageolet of flesh and blood--a voice, and nothing more--just the unconscious voice that Svengali sang with--for it takes two to sing like la Svengali, monsieur--the one who has got the voice, and the one who knows what to do with it.... So that when you heard her sing the 'Nussbaum,' the 'Impromptu,' you heard Svengali singing with her voice, just as you hear Joachim play a chaconne of Bach with his fiddle!...

Herr Joachim's fiddle ... what does it know of Sebastian Bach? and as for chaconnes ... _il s'en moque pas mal, ce fameux violon!_ ...

"And _our_ Trilby ... what did she know of Schumann, Chopin?--nothing at all! She mocked herself not badly of Nussbaums and impromptus ... they would make her yawn to demantibulate her jaws!... When Svengali's Trilby was being taught to sing ... when Svengali's Trilby was singing--or seemed to _you_ as if she were singing--_our_ Trilby had ceased to exist ... _our_ Trilby was fast asleep ... in fact, _our_ Trilby was _dead_....

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NIGHTINGALE'S FIRST SONG]

"Ah, monsieur ... that Trilby of Svengali's! I have heard her sing to kings and queens in royal palaces!... as no woman has ever sung before or since.... I have seen emperors and grand-dukes kiss her hand, monsieur--and their wives and daughters kiss her lips, and weep....

"I have seen the horses taken out of her sledge and the pick of the n.o.bility drag her home to the hotel ... with torchlights and choruses and shoutings of glory and long life to her!... and serenades all night, under her window!... _she_ never knew! she heard nothing--felt nothing--saw nothing! and she bowed to them, right and left, like a queen!

"I have played the fiddle for her while she sang in the streets, at fairs and festas and Kermessen ... and seen the people go mad to hear her ... and once, at Prague, Svengali fell down in a fit from sheer excitement! and then, suddenly, _our_ Trilby woke up and wondered what it was all about ... and we took him home and put him to bed and left him with Marta--and Trilby and I went together arm in arm all over the town to fetch a doctor and buy things for supper--and that was the happiest hour in all my life!

"Ach! what an existence! what travels! what triumphs! what adventures!

Things to fill a book--a dozen books--Those five happy years--with those two Trilbys! what recollections!... I think of nothing else, night or day ... even as I play the fiddle for old Cantharidi. Ach!... To think how often I have played the fiddle for la Svengali ... to have done that is to have lived ... and then to come home to Trilby ... _our_ Trilby ... the _real_ Trilby!... Got sei dank! Ich habe _geliebt und gelebet!

geliebt und gelebet! geliebt und gelebet!_ Cristo di Dio.... Sweet sister in heaven.... o Dieu de Misere, ayez pitie de nous...."

His eyes were red, and his voice was high and shrill and tremulous and full of tears; these remembrances were too much for him; and perhaps also the chambertin! He put his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hands and wept, muttering to himself in his own language (Whatever that might have been--Polish, probably) as if he were praying.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'ICH HABE _GELIEBT UND GELEBET_!'"]

Taffy and his wife got up and leaned on the window-bar and looked out on the deserted boulevards, where an army of scavengers, noiseless and taciturn, was cleansing the asphalt roadway. The night above was dark, but "star-dials hinted of morn," and a fresh breeze had sprung up, making the leaves dance and rustle on the sycamore-trees along the Boulevard--a nice little breeze; just the sort of little breeze to do Paris good. A four-wheel cab came by at a foot pace, the driver humming a tune; Taffy hailed him; he said, "V'la, m'sieur!" and drew up.

Taffy rang the bell, and asked for the bill, and paid it. Gecko had apparently fallen asleep. Taffy gently woke him up, and told him how late it was. The poor little man seemed dazed and rather tipsy, and looked older than ever; sixty, seventy--any age you like. Taffy helped him on with his great-coat, and, taking him by the arm, led him down-stairs, giving him his card, and telling him how glad he was to have seen him, and that he would write to him from England--a promise which was kept, one may be sure.

Gecko uncovered his fuzzy white head, and took Mrs. Taffy's hand and kissed it, and thanked her warmly for her "si bon et sympathique accueil."

Then Taffy all but lifted him into the cab, the jolly cabman saying:

"Ah! bon--connais bien, celui la; vous savez--c'est lui qui joue du violon aux Mouches d'Espagne! Il a soupe, l'bourgeois; n'est-ce pas, m'sieur? 'pet.i.ts bonheurs de contrebande,' hein?... ayez pas peur! on vous aura soin de lui! il joue joliment bien, m'sieur; n'est-ce pas?"

Taffy shook Gecko's hand, and asked,

"Ou restez-vous, Gecko?"

"Quarante-huit, Rue des Pousse-cailloux, au cinquieme."

"How strange!" said Taffy to his wife--"how touching! why, that's where Trilby used to live--the very number! the very floor!"

"Oui, oui," said Gecko, waking up; "c'est l'ancienne mansarde a Trilby--j'y suis depuis douze ans--_j'y suis, j'y reste_...."

And he laughed feebly at his mild little joke.

Taffy told the address to the cabman, and gave him five francs.

"Merci, m'sieur! C'est de l'aut' cote de l'eau--pres de la Sorbonne, s'pas? On vous aura soin du bourgeois; soyez tranquille--ayez pas peur!

quarante-huit; on y va! Bonsoir, monsieur et dame!" And he clacked his whip and rattled away, singing:

"V'la mon mari qui r'garde-- Prends garde!

Ne m'chatouill' plus!"

Mr. and Mrs. Wynne walked back to the hotel, which was not far. She hung on to his big arm and crept close to him, and s.h.i.+vered a little. It was quite chilly. Their footsteps were very audible in the stillness; "pit-pat, flopety-clop," otherwise they were both silent. They were tired, yawny, sleepy, and very sad; and each was thinking (and knew the other was thinking) that a week in Paris was just enough--and how nice it would be, in just a few hours more, to hear the rooks cawing round their own quiet little English country home--where three jolly boys would soon be coming for the holidays.

And there we will leave them to their useful, hum-drum, happy domestic existence--than which there is no better that I know of, at their time of life--and no better time of life than theirs!

"_Ou peut-on etre mieux qu'au sein de ta famille?_"

That blessed harbor of refuge well within our reach, and having really cut our wisdom teeth at last, and learned the ropes, and left off hankering after the moon--we can do with so little down here....

A little work, a little play To keep us going--and so, good-day!