“I won’t go indoors this evening for any one,” Cressida declared. “Not while the sky is like that. Now we will go back to the laurel wood. They are so black, over the snow, that I could cry for joy. I don’t know when I’ve felt so care-free as I feel tonight. Country winter, country stars — they always make me think of Charley Wilton.”
She was singing twice a week, sometimes oftener, at the Metropolitan5 that season, quite at the flood-tide of her powers, and so enmeshed in operatic routine that to be walking in the park at an unaccustomed hour, unattended by one of the men of her entourage, seemed adventurous6. As we strolled along the little paths among the snow banks and the bronze laurel bushes, she kept going back to my poor young cousin, dead so long. “Things happen out of season. That’s the worst of living. It was untimely for both of us, and yet,” she sighed softly, “since he had to die, I’m not sorry. There was one beautifully happy year, though we were so poor, and it gave him — something! It would have been too hard if he’d had to miss everything.” (I remember her simplicity7, which never changed any more than winter or Ohio change.) “Yes,” she went on, “I always feel very tenderly about Charley. I believe I’d do the same thing right over again, even knowing all that had to come after. If I were nineteen tonight, I’d rather go sleigh-riding with Charley Wilton than anything else I’ve ever done.”
We walked until the procession of carriages on the driveway, getting people home to dinner, grew thin, and then we went slowly toward the Seventh Avenue gate, still talking of Charley Wilton. We decided8 to dine at a place not far away, where the only access from the street was a narrow door, like a hole in the wall, between a tobacconist’s and a flower shop. Cressida deluded9 herself into believing that her incognito10 was more successful in such non-descript places. She was wearing a long sable11 coat, and a deep fur hat, hung with red cherries, which she had brought from Russia. Her walk had given her a fine colour, and she looked so much a personage that no disguise could have been wholly effective.
The dining-rooms, frescoed12 with conventional Italian scenes, were built round a court. The orchestra was playing as we entered and selected our table. It was not a bad orchestra, and we were no sooner seated than the first violin began to speak, to assert itself, as if it were suddenly done with mediocrity.
“We have been recognized,” Cressida said complacently13. “What a good tone he has, quite unusual. What does he look like?” She sat with her back to the musicians.
The violinist was standing14, directing his men with his head and with the beak15 of his violin. He was a tall, gaunt young man, big-boned and rugged16, in skin-tight clothes. His high forehead had a kind of luminous17 pallour, and his hair was jet black and somewhat stringy. His manner was excited and dramatic. At the end of the number he acknowledged the applause, and Cressida looked at him graciously over her shoulder. He swept her with a brilliant glance and bowed again. Then I noticed his red lips and thick black eyebrows18.
“He looks as if he were poor or in trouble,” Cressida said. “See how short his sleeves are, and how he mops his face as if the least thing upset him. This is a hard winter for musicians.”
The violinist rummaged19 among some music piled on a chair, turning over the sheets with flurried rapidity, as if he were searching for a lost article of which he was in desperate need. Presently he placed some sheets upon the piano and began vehemently21 to explain something to the pianist. The pianist stared at the music doubtfully — he was a plump old man with a rosy22, bald crown, and his shiny linen23 and neat tie made him look as if he were on his way to a party. The violinist bent24 over him, suggesting rhythms with his shoulders and running his bony finger up and down the pages. When he stepped back to his place, I noticed that the other players sat at ease, without raising their instruments.
“He is going to try something unusual,” I commented. “It looks as if it might be manuscript.”
It was something, at all events, that neither of us had heard before, though it was very much in the manner of the later Russian composers who were just beginning to be heard in New York. The young man made a brilliant dash of it, despite a lagging, scrambling25 accompaniment by the conservative pianist. This time we both applauded him vigorously and again, as he bowed, he swept us with his eye.
The usual repertory of restaurant music followed, varied26 by a charming bit from Massenet’s “Manon,” then little known in this country. After we paid our check, Cressida took out one of her visiting cards and wrote across the top of it: “We thank you for the unusual music and the pleasure your playing has given us.“ She folded the card in the middle, and asked the waiter to give it to the director of the orchestra. Pausing at the door, while the porter dashed out to call a cab, we saw, in the wall mirror, a pair of wild black eyes following us quite despairingly from behind the palms at the other end of the room. Cressida observed as we went out that the young man was probably having a hard struggle. “He never got those clothes here, surely. They were probably made by a country tailor in some little town in Austria. He seemed wild enough to grab at anything, and was trying to make himself heard above the dishes, poor fellow. There are so many like him. I wish I could help them all! I didn’t quite have the courage to send him money. His smile, when he bowed to us, was not that of one who would take it, do you think?”
“No,” I admitted, “it wasn’t. He seemed to be pleading for recognition. I don’t think it was money he wanted.”
A week later I came upon some curious-looking manuscript songs on the piano in Cressida’s music room. The text was in some Slavic tongue with a French translation written underneath27. Both the handwriting and the musical script were done in a manner experienced, even distinguished28. I was looking at them when Cressida came in.
“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “I meant to ask you to try them over. Poppas thinks they are very interesting. They are from that young violinist, you remember, — the one we noticed in the restaurant that evening. He sent them with such a nice letter. His name is Blasius Bouchalka (Boú-kal-ka), a Bohemian.”
I sat down at the piano and busied myself with the manuscript, while Cressida dashed off necessary notes and wrote checks in a large square checkbook, six to a page. I supposed her immersed in sumptuary preoccupations when she suddenly looked over her shoulder and said, “Yes, that legend, Sarka, is the most interesting. Run it through a few times and I’ll try it over with you.”
There was another, “Dans les ombres des f?rets tristes”, which I thought quite as beautiful. They were fine songs; very individual, and each had that spontaneity which makes a song seem inevitable29 and, once for all, “done.” The accompaniments were difficult, but not unnecessarily so; they were free from fatuous30 ingenuity31 and fine writing.
“I wish he’d indicated his tempi32 a little more clearly,” I remarked as I finished Sarka for the third time. “It matters, because he really has something to say. An orchestral accompaniment would be better, I should think.”
“Yes, he sent the orchestral arrangement. Poppas has it. It works out beautifully, — so much colour in the instrumentation. The English horn comes in so effectively there,” she rose and indicated the passage, “just right with the voice. I’ve asked him to come next Sunday, so please be here if you can. I want to know what you think of him.”
Cressida was always at home to her friends on Sunday afternoon unless she was billed for the evening concert at the Opera House, in which case we were sufficiently33 advised by the daily press. Bouchalka must have been told to come early, for when I arrived on Sunday, at four, he and Cressida had the music-room quite to themselves and were standing by the piano in earnest conversation. In a few moments they were separated by other early comers, and I led Bouchalka across the hall to the drawing-room. The guests, as they came in, glanced at him curiously34. He wore a dark blue suit, soft and rather baggy35, with a short coat, and a high double-breasted vest with two rows of buttons coming up to the loops of his black tie. This costume was even more foreign-looking than his skin-tight dress clothes, but it was more becoming. He spoke36 hurried, elliptical English, and very good French. All his sympathies were French rather than German — the Czecks lean to the one culture or to the other. I found him a fierce, a transfixing talker. His brilliant eyes, his gaunt hands, his white, deeply-lined forehead, all entered into his speech.
I asked him whether he had not recognized Madame Garnet at once when we entered the restaurant that evening more than a week ago.
“Mais, certainement! I hear her twice when she sings in the afternoon, and sometimes at night for the last act. I have a friend who buys a ticket for the first part, and he comes out and gives to me his pass-back check, and I return for the last act. That is convenient if I am broke.” He explained the trick with amusement but without embarrassment37, as if it were a shift that we might any of us be put to.
I told him that I admired his skill with the violin, but his songs much more.
He threw out his red under-lip and frowned. “Oh, I have no instrument! The violin I play from necessity; the flute38, the piano, as it happens. For three years now I write all the time, and it spoils the hand for violin.”
When the maid brought him his tea, he took both muffins and cakes and told me that he was very hungry. He had to lunch and dine at the place where he played, and he got very tired of the food. “But since,” his black eyebrows nearly met in an acute angle, “but since, before, I eat at a bakery, with the slender brown roach on the pie, I guess I better let alone well enough.” He paused to drink his tea; as he tasted one of the cakes his face lit with sudden animation39 and he gazed across the hall after the maid with the tray — she was now holding it before the aged20 and ossified40 ‘cellist of the Hempfstangle Quartette. “Des gateaux” he murmured feelingly, “ou est-ce qu’elle peut trouver de tels gateaux ici a New York?”
I explained to him that Madame Garnet had an accomplished42 cook who made them, — an Austrian, I thought.
He shook his head. “Austrichienne? Je ne pense pas.”
Cressida was approaching with the new Spanish soprano, Mme. Bartolas, who was all black velvet43 and long black feathers, with a lace veil over her rich pallour and even a little black patch on her chin. I beckoned44 them. “Tell me, Cressida, isn’t Ruzenka an Austrian?”
She looked surprised. “No, a Bohemian, though I got her in Vienna.” Bouchalka’s expression, and the remnant of a cake in his long fingers, gave her the connection. She laughed. “You like them? Of course, they are of your own country. You shall have more of them.” She nodded and went away to greet a guest who had just come in.
A few moments later, Horace, then a beautiful lad in Eton clothes, brought another cup of tea and a plate of cakes for Bouchalka. We sat down in a corner, and talked about his songs. He was neither boastful nor deprecatory. He knew exactly in what respects they were excellent. I decided as I watched his face, that he must be under thirty. The deep lines in his forehead probably came there from his habit of frowning densely45 when he struggled to express himself, and suddenly elevating his coal-black eyebrows when his ideas cleared. His teeth were white, very irregular and interesting. The corrective methods of modern dentistry would have taken away half his good looks. His mouth would have been much less attractive for any rearranging of those long, narrow, over-crowded teeth. Along with his frown and his way of thrusting out his lip, they contributed, somehow, to the engaging impetuousness of his conversation. As we talked about his songs, his manner changed. Before that he had seemed responsive and easily pleased. Now he grew abstracted, as if I had taken away his pleasant afternoon and wakened him to his miseries46. He moved restlessly in his clothes. When I mentioned Puccini, he held his head in his hands.
“Why is it they like that always and always? A little, oh yes, very nice. But so much, always the same thing! Why?” He pierced me with the despairing glance which had followed us out of the restaurant.
I asked him whether he had sent any of his songs to the publishers and named one whom I knew to be discriminating47. He shrugged48 his shoulders. “They not want Bohemian songs. They not want my music. Even the street cars will not stop for me here, like for other people. Every time, I wait on the corner until somebody else make a signal to the car, and then it stop, — but not for me.”
Most people cannot become utterly49 poor; whatever happens, they can right themselves a little. But one felt that Bouchalka was the sort of person who might actually starve or blow his brains out. Something very important had been left out either of his make-up or of his education; something that we are not accustomed to miss in people.
Gradually the parlour was filled with little groups of friends, and I took Bouchalka back to the music-room where Cressida was surrounded by her guests; feathered women, with large sleeves and hats, young men of no importance, in frock coats, with shining hair, and the smile which is intended to say so many flattering things but which really expresses little more than a desire to get on. The older men were standing about waiting for a word à deux with the hostess. To these people Bouchalka had nothing to say. He stood stiffly at the outer edge of the circle, watching Cressida with intent, impatient eyes, until, under the pretext50 of showing him a score, she drew him into the alcove51 at the back end of the long room, where she kept her musical library. The bookcases ran from the floor to the ceiling. There was a table and a reading-lamp, and a window seat looking upon the little walled garden. Two persons could be quite withdrawn52 there, and yet be a part of the general friendly scene. Cressida took a score from the shelf, and sat down with Bouchalka upon the window seat, the book open between them, though neither of them looked at it again. They fell to talking with great earnestness. At last the Bohemian pulled out a large, yellowing silver watch, held it up before him, and stared at it a moment as if it were an object of horror. He sprang up, bent over Cressida’s hand and murmured something, dashed into the hall and out of the front door without waiting for the maid to open it. He had worn no overcoat, apparently53. It was then seven o’clock; he would surely be late at his post in the up-town restaurant. I hoped he would have wit enough to take the elevated.
After supper Cressida told me his story. His parents, both poor musicians, — the mother a singer — died while he was yet a baby, and he was left to the care of an arbitrary uncle who resolved to make a priest of him. He was put into a monastery54 school and kept there. The organist and choir-director, fortunately for Blasius, was an excellent musician, a man who had begun his career brilliantly, but who had met with crushing sorrows and disappointments in the world. He devoted55 himself to his talented pupil, and was the only teacher the young man ever had. At twenty-one, when he was ready for the novitiate, Blasius felt that the call of life was too strong for him, and he ran away out into a world of which he knew nothing. He tramped southward to Vienna, begging and playing his fiddle56 from town to town. In Vienna he fell in with a gipsy band which was being recruited for a Paris restaurant and went with them to Paris. He played in cafés and in cheap theatres, did transcribing57 for a music publisher, tried to get pupils. For four years he was the mouse, and hunger was the cat. She kept him on the jump. When he got work he did not understand why; when he lost a job he did not understand why. During the time when most of us acquire a practical sense, get a half-unconscious knowledge of hard facts and market values, he had been shut away from the world, fed like the pigeons in the bell-tower of his monastery. Bouchalka had now been in New York a year, and for all he knew about it, Cressida said, he might have landed the day before yesterday.
Several weeks went by, and as Bouchalka did not reappear on Tenth Street, Cressida and I went once more to the place where he had played, only to find another violinist leading the orchestra. We summoned the proprietor58, a Swiss–Italian, polite and solicitous59. He told us the gentleman was not playing there any more, — was playing somewhere else, but he had forgotten where. We insisted upon talking to the old pianist, who at last reluctantly admitted that the Bohemian had been dismissed. He had arrived very late one Sunday night three weeks ago, and had hot words with the proprietor. He had been late before, and had been warned. He was a very talented fellow, but wild and not to be depended upon. The old man gave us the address of a French boarding-house on Seventh Avenue where Bouchalka used to room. We drove there at once, but the woman who kept the place said that he had gone away two weeks before, leaving no address, as he never got letters. Another Bohemian, who did engraving60 on glass, had a room with her, and when he came home perhaps he could tell where Bouchalka was, for they were friends.
It took us several days to run Bouchalka down, but when we did find him Cressida promptly61 busied herself in his behalf. She sang his “Sarka“ with the Metropolitan Opera orchestra at a Sunday night concert, she got him a position with the Symphony Orchestra, and persuaded the conservative Hempfstangle Quartette to play one of his chamber62 compositions from manuscript. She aroused the interest of a publisher in his work, and introduced him to people who were helpful to him.
By the new year Bouchalka was fairly on his feet. He had proper clothes now, and Cressida’s friends found him attractive. He was usually at her house on Sunday afternoons; so usually, indeed, that Poppas began pointedly63 to absent himself. When other guests arrived, the Bohemian and his patroness were always found at the critical point of discussion, — at the piano, by the fire, in the alcove at the end of the room — both of them interested and animated65. He was invariably respectful and admiring, deferring66 to her in every tone and gesture, and she was perceptibly pleased and flattered, — as if all this were new to her and she were tasting the sweetness of a first success.
One wild day in March Cressida burst tempestuously67 into my apartment and threw herself down, declaring that she had just come from the most trying rehearsal68 she had ever lived through. When I tried to question her about it, she replied absently and continued to shiver and crouch69 by the fire. Suddenly she rose, walked to the window, and stood looking out over the Square, glittering with ice and rain and strewn with the wrecks70 of umbrellas. When she turned again, she approached me with determination.
“I shall have to ask you to go with me,” she said firmly. “That crazy Bouchalka has gone and got a pleurisy or something. It may be pneumonia71; there is an epidemic72 of it just now. I’ve sent Dr. Brooks73 to him, but I can never tell anything from what a doctor says. I’ve got to see Bouchalka and his nurse, and what sort of place he’s in. I’ve been rehearsing all day and I’m singing tomorrow night; I can’t have so much on my mind. Can you come with me? It will save time in the end.”
I put on my furs, and we went down to Cressida’s carriage, waiting below. She gave the driver a number on Seventh Avenue, and then began feeling her throat with the alarmed expression which meant that she was not going to talk. We drove in silence to the address, and by this time it was growing dark. The French landlady74 was a cordial, comfortable person who took Cressida in at a glance and seemed much impressed. Cressida’s incognito was never successful. Her black gown was inconspicuous enough, but over it she wore a dark purple velvet carriage coat, lined with fur and furred at the cuffs75 and collar. The Frenchwoman’s eye ran over it delightedly and scrutinized76 the veil which only half-concealed the well-known face behind it. She insisted upon conducting us up to the fourth floor herself, running ahead of us and turning up the gas jets in the dark, musty-smelling halls. I suspect that she tarried outside the door after we sent the nurse for her walk.
We found the sick man in a great walnut77 bed, a relic78 of the better days which this lodging79 house must have seen. The grimy red plush carpet, the red velvet chairs with broken springs, the double gilt-framed mirror above the mantel, had all been respectable, substantial contributions to comfort in their time. The fireplace was now empty and grateless, and an ill-smelling gas stove burned in its sooty recess80 under the cracked marble. The huge arched windows were hung with heavy red curtains, pinned together and lightly stirred by the wind which rattled81 the loose frames.
I was examining these things while Cressida bent over Bouchalka. Her carriage cloak she threw over the foot of his bed, either from a protective impulse, or because there was no place else to put it. After she had greeted him and seated herself, the sick man reached down and drew the cloak up over him, looking at it with weak, childish pleasure and stroking the velvet with his long fingers. “Couleur de gloire, couleur des reines!” I heard him murmur41. He thrust the sleeve under his chin and closed his eyes. His loud, rapid breathing was the only sound in the room. If Cressida brushed back his hair or touched his hand, he looked up long enough to give her a smile of utter adoration82, naive83 and uninquiring, as if he were smiling at a dream or a miracle.
The nurse was gone for an hour, and we sat quietly, Cressida with her eyes fixed84 on Bouchalka, and I absorbed in the strange atmosphere of the house, which seemed to seep85 in under the door and through the walls. Occasionally we heard a call for “de l’eau chaude!” and the heavy trot3 of a serving woman on the stairs. On the floor below somebody was struggling with Schubert’s Marche Militaire on a coarse-toned upright piano. Sometimes, when a door was opened, one could hear a parrot screaming, “Voilà, voilà, tonnerre!” The house was built before 1870, as one could tell from windows and mouldings, and the walls were thick. The sounds were not disturbing and Bouchalka was probably used to them.
When the nurse returned and we rose to go, Bouchalka still lay with his cheek on her cloak, and Cressida left it. “It seems to please him,” she murmured as we went down the stairs. “I can go home without a wrap. It’s not far.” I had, of course, to give her my furs, as I was not singing Donna Anna tomorrow evening and she was.
After this I was not surprised by any devout86 attitude in which I happened to find the Bohemian when I entered Cressida’s music-room unannounced, or by any radiance on her face when she rose from the window-seat in the alcove and came down the room to greet me.
Bouchalka was, of course, very often at the Opera now. On almost any night when Cressida sang, one could see his narrow black head — high above the temples and rather constrained87 behind the ears — peering from some part of the house. I used to wonder what he thought of Cressida as an artist, but probably he did not think seriously at all. A great voice, a handsome woman, a great prestige, all added together made a “great artist,” the common synonym88 for success. Her success, and the material evidences of it, quite blinded him. I could never draw from him anything adequate about Anna Straka, Cressida’s Slavic rival, and this perhaps meant that he considered comparison disloyal. All the while that Cressida was singing reliably, and satisfying the management, Straka was singing uncertainly and making history. Her voice was primarily defective89, and her immediate90 vocal91 method was bad. Cressida was always living up to her contract, delivering the whole order in good condition; while the Slav was sometimes almost voiceless, sometimes inspired. She put you off with a hope, a promise, time after time. But she was quite as likely to put you off with a revelation, — with an interpretation92 that was inimitable, unrepeatable.
Bouchalka was not a reflective person. He had his own idea of what a great prima donna should be like, and he took it for granted that Mme. Garnet corresponded to his conception. The curious thing was that he managed to impress his idea upon Cressida herself. She began to see herself as he saw her, to try to be like the notion of her that he carried somewhere in that pointed64 head of his. She was exalted93 quite beyond herself. Things that had been chilled under the grind came to life in her that winter, with the breath of Bouchalka’s adoration. Then, if ever in her life, she heard the bird sing on the branch outside her window; and she wished she were younger, lovelier, freer. She wished there were no Poppas, no Horace, no Garnets. She longed to be only the bewitching creature Bouchalka imagined her.
One April day when we were driving in the Park, Cressida, superb in a green-and-primrose costume hurried over from Paris, turned to me smiling and said: “Do you know, this is the first spring I haven’t dreaded94. It’s the first one I’ve ever really had. Perhaps people never have more than one, whether it comes early or late.” She told me that she was overwhelmingly in love.
Our visit to Bouchalka when he was ill had, of course, been reported, and the men about the Opera House had made of it the only story they have the wit to invent. They could no more change the pattern of that story than the spider could change the design of its web. But being, as she said, “in love” suggested to Cressida only one plan of action; to have the Tenth Street house done over, to put more money into her brothers’ business, send Horace to school, raise Poppas’ percentage, and then with a clear conscience be married in the Church of the Ascension. She went through this program with her usual thoroughness. She was married in June and sailed immediately with her husband. Poppas was to join them in Vienna in August, when she would begin to work again. From her letters I gathered that all was going well, even beyond her hopes.
When they returned in October, both Cressida and Blasius seemed changed for the better. She was perceptibly freshened and renewed. She attacked her work at once with more vigour96 and more ease; did not drive herself so relentlessly97. A little carelessness became her wonderfully. Bouchalka was less gaunt, and much less flighty and perverse98. His frank pleasure in the comfort and order of his wife’s establishment was ingratiating, even if it was a little amusing. Cressida had the sewing-room at the top of the house made over into a study for him. When I went up there to see him, I usually found him sitting before the fire or walking about with his hands in his coat pockets, admiring his new possessions. He explained the ingenious arrangement of his study to me a dozen times.
With Cressida’s friends and guests, Bouchalka assumed nothing for himself. His deportment amounted to a quiet, unobtrusive appreciation99 of her and of his good fortune. He was proud to owe his wife so much. Cressida’s Sunday afternoons were more popular than ever, since she herself had so much more heart for them. Bouchalka’s picturesque100 presence stimulated101 her graciousness and charm. One still found them conversing102 together as eagerly as in the days when they saw each other but seldom. Consequently their guests were never bored. We felt as if the Tenth Street house had a pleasant climate quite its own. In the spring, when the Metropolitan company went on tour, Cressida’s husband accompanied her, and afterward103 they again sailed for Genoa.
During the second winter people began to say that Bouchalka was becoming too thoroughly104 domesticated105, and that since he was growing heavier in body he was less attractive. I noticed his increasing reluctance106 to stir abroad. Nobody could say that he was “wild” now. He seemed to dread95 leaving the house, even for an evening. Why should he go out, he said, when he had everything he wanted at home? He published very little. One was given to understand that he was writing an opera. He lived in the Tenth Street house like a tropical plant under glass. Nowhere in New York could he get such cookery as Ruzenka’s. Ruzenka (“little Rose”) had, like her mistress, bloomed afresh, now that she had a man and a compatriot to cook for. Her invention was tireless, and she took things with a high hand in the kitchen, confident of a perfect appreciation. She was a plump, fair, blue-eyed girl, giggly107 and easily flattered, with teeth like cream. She was passionately108 domestic, and her mind was full of homely109 stories and proverbs and superstitions110 which she somehow worked into her cookery. She and Bouchalka had between them a whole literature of traditions about sauces and fish and pastry111. The cellar was full of the wines he liked, and Ruzenka always knew what wines to serve with the dinner. Blasius’ monastery had been famous for good living.
That winter was a very cold one, and I think the even temperature of the house enslaved Bouchalka. “Imagine it,” he once said to me when I dropped in during a blinding snowstorm and found him reading before the fire. “To be warm all the time, every day! It is like Aladdin. In Paris I have had weeks together when I was not warm once, when I did not have a bath once, like the cats in the street. The nights were a misery112. People have terrible dreams when they are so cold. Here I waken up in the night so warm I do not know what it means. Her door is open, and I turn on my light. I cannot believe in myself until I see that she is there.”
I began to think that Bouchalka’s wildness had been the desperation which the tamest animals exhibit when they are tortured or terrorized. Naturally luxurious113, he had suffered more than most men under the pinch of penury114. Those first beautiful compositions, full of the folk-music of his own country, had been wrung115 out of him by home-sickness and heart-ache. I wondered whether he could compose only under the spur of hunger and loneliness, and whether his talent might not subside116 with his despair. Some such apprehension117 must have troubled Cressida, though his gratitude118 would have been propitiatory119 to a more exacting120 task-master. She had always liked to make people happy, and he was the first one who had accepted her bounty121 without sourness. When he did not accompany her upon her spring tour, Cressida said it was because travelling interfered122 with composition; but I felt that she was deeply disappointed. Blasius, or Bla[vz]ej, as his wife had with difficulty learned to call him, was not showy or extravagant123. He hated hotels, even the best of them. Cressida had always fought for the hearthstone and the fireside, and the humour of Destiny is sometimes to give us too much of what we desire. I believe she would have preferred even enthusiasm about other women to his utter oisiveté. It was his old fire, not his docility124, that had won her.
During the third season after her marriage Cressida had only twenty-five performances at the Metropolitan, and she was singing out of town a great deal. Her husband did not bestir himself to accompany her, but he attended, very faithfully, to her correspondence and to her business at home. He had no ambitious schemes to increase her fortune, and he carried out her directions exactly. Nevertheless, Cressida faced her concert tours somewhat grimly, and she seldom talked now about their plans for the future.
The crisis in this growing estrangement125 came about by accident, — one of those chance occurrences that affect our lives more than years of ordered effort, — and it came in an inverted126 form of a situation old to comedy. Cressida had been on the road for several weeks; singing in Minneapolis, Cleveland, St. Paul, then up into Canada and back to Boston. From Boston she was to go directly to Chicago, coming down on the five o’clock train and taking the eleven, over the Lake Shore, for the West. By her schedule she would have time to change cars comfortably at the Grand Central station.
On the journey down from Boston she was seized with a great desire to see Blasius. She decided, against her custom, one might say against her principles, to risk a performance with the Chicago orchestra without rehearsal, to stay the night in New York and go west by the afternoon train the next day. She telegraphed Chicago, but she did not telegraph Blasius, because she wished — the old fallacy of affection! — to “surprise” him. She could take it for granted that, at eleven on a cold winter night, he would be in the Tenth Street house and nowhere else in New York. She sent Poppas — paler than usual with accusing scorn — and her trunks on to Chicago, and with only her travelling bag and a sense of being very audacious in her behaviour and still very much in love, she took a cab for Tenth Street.
Since it was her intention to disturb Blasius as little as possible and to delight him as much as possible, she let herself in with her latch-key and went directly to his room. She did not find him there. Indeed, she found him where he should not have been at all. There must have been a trying scene.
Ruzenka was sent away in the morning, and the other two maids as well. By eight o’clock Cressida and Bouchalka had the house to themselves. Nobody had any breakfast. Cressida took the afternoon train to keep her engagement with Theodore Thomas, and to think over the situation. Blasius was left in the Tenth Street house with only the furnace man’s wife to look after him. His explanation of his conduct was that he had been drinking too much. His digression, he swore, was casual. It had never occurred before, and he could only appeal to his wife’s magnanimity. But it was, on the whole, easier for Cressida to be firm than to be yielding, and she knew herself too well to attempt a readjustment. She had never made shabby compromises, and it was too late for her to begin. When she returned to New York she went to a hotel, and she never saw Bouchalka alone again. Since he admitted her charge, the legal formalities were conducted so quietly that the granting of her divorce was announced in the morning papers before her friends knew that there was the least likelihood of one. Cressida’s concert tours had interrupted the hospitalities of the house.
While the lawyers were arranging matters, Bouchalka came to see me. He was remorseful127 and miserable128 enough, and I think his perplexity was quite sincere. If there had been an intrigue129 with a woman of her own class, an infatuation, an affair, he said, he could understand. But anything so venial130 and accidental — He shook his head slowly back and forth131. He assured me that he was not at all himself on that fateful evening, and that when he recovered himself he would have sent Ruzenka away, making proper provision for her, of course. It was an ugly thing, but ugly things sometimes happened in one’s life, and one had to put them away and forget them. He could have overlooked any accident that might have occurred when his wife was on the road, with Poppas, for example. I cut him short, and he bent his head to my reproof132.
“I know,” he said, “such things are different with her. But when have I said that I am noble as she is? Never. But I have appreciated and I have adored. About me, say what you like. But if you say that in this there was any méprise to my wife, that is not true. I have lost all my place here. I came in from the streets; but I understand her, and all the fine things in her, better than any of you here. If that accident had not been, she would have lived happy with me for years. As for me, I have never believed in this happiness. I was not born under a good star. How did it come? By accident. It goes by accident. She tried to give good fortune to an unfortunate man, un miserable; that was her mistake. It cannot be done in this world. The lucky should marry the lucky.” Bouchalka stopped and lit a cigarette. He sat sunk in my chair as if he never meant to get up again. His large hands, now so much plumper than when I first knew him, hung limp. When he had consumed his cigarette he turned to me again.
“I, too, have tried. Have I so much as written one note to a lady since she first put out her hand to help me? Some of the artists who sing my compositions have been quite willing to plague my wife a little if I make the least sign. With the Espa?ola, for instance, I have had to be very stern, farouche; she is so very playful. I have never given my wife the slightest annoyance133 of this kind. Since I married her, I have not kissed the cheek of one lady! Then one night I am bored and drink too much champagne134 and I become a fool. What does it matter? Did my wife marry the fool of me? No, she married me, with my mind and my feelings all here, as I am today. But she is getting a divorce from the fool of me, which she would never see anyhow! The stupidity which excuse me is the thing she will not overlook. Even in her memory of me she will be harsh.”
His view of his conduct and its consequences was fatalistic: he was meant to have just so much misery every day of his life; for three years it had been withheld135, had been piling up somewhere, underground, overhead; now the accumulation burst over him. He had come to pay his respects to me, he said, to declare his undying gratitude to Madame Garnet, and to bid me farewell. He took up his hat and cane136 and kissed my hand. I have never seen him since. Cressida made a settlement upon him, but even Poppas, tortured by envy and curiosity, never discovered how much it was. It was very little, she told me. “Pour des gateaux,” she added with a smile that was not unforgiving. She could not bear to think of his being in want when so little could make him comfortable.
He went back to his own village in Bohemia. He wrote her that the old monk137, his teacher, was still alive, and that from the windows of his room in the town he could see the pigeons flying forth from and back to the monastery bell-tower all day long. He sent her a song, with his own words, about those pigeons, — quite a lovely thing. He was the bell tower, and les colombes were his memories of her.
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1
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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3
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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5
metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
incognito
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| adv.匿名地；n.隐姓埋名；adj.化装的，用假名的，隐匿姓名身份的 | |
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11
sable
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| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
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12
frescoed
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| 壁画( fresco的名词复数 )； 温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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13
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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14
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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15
beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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16
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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17
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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18
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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19
rummaged
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的过去式和过去分词 )； 已经海关检查 | |
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20
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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21
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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22
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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23
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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24
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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25
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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26
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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27
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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28
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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29
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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30
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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31
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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32
tempi
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| 拍子，发展速度； 乐曲的速度或拍子( tempo的名词复数 )； （运动或活动的）速度，进度 | |
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33
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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34
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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35
baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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36
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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37
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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38
flute
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| n.长笛；v.吹笛 | |
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39
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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40
ossified
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| adj.已骨化[硬化]的v.骨化，硬化，使僵化( ossify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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42
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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43
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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44
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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46
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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47
discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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48
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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49
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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50
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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51
alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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52
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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53
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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54
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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55
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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56
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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57
transcribing
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| （用不同的录音手段）转录( transcribe的现在分词 )； 改编（乐曲）（以适应他种乐器或声部）； 抄写； 用音标标出（声音） | |
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58
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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59
solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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60
engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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61
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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62
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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63
pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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64
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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65
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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66
deferring
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| v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的现在分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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67
tempestuously
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| adv.剧烈地，暴风雨似地 | |
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68
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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69
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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70
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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71
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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72
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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73
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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74
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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75
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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76
scrutinized
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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78
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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79
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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80
recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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81
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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82
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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83
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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84
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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85
seep
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| v.渗出，渗漏；n.渗漏，小泉，水（油）坑 | |
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86
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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87
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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88
synonym
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| n.同义词，换喻词 | |
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89
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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90
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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91
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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92
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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93
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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94
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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95
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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96
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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97
relentlessly
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| adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断 | |
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98
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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99
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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100
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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101
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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102
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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105
domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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giggly
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| adj.傻笑的，吃吃笑的 | |
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108
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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111
pastry
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| n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点 | |
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112
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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113
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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114
penury
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| n.贫穷，拮据 | |
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115
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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116
subside
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| vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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propitiatory
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| adj.劝解的；抚慰的；谋求好感的；哄人息怒的 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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122
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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123
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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docility
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| n.容易教，易驾驶，驯服 | |
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estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remorseful
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| adj.悔恨的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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venial
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| adj.可宽恕的；轻微的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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132
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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133
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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134
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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135
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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136
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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