CHAPTER VII.
"BACK! WOULD YOU MURDER HER?"
When Edward Morgan went to Europe from Columbia college it was inobedience to a mandate of John Morgan through the New York lawyers. Hewent, began there the life of a bohemian. Introduced by a chanceacquaintance, he fell in first with the art circles of Paris, and,having a fancy and decided talent for painting, he betook himselfseriously to study. But the same shadow, the same need of anoverpowering motive, pursued him. With hope and ambition he might havebecome known to fame. As it was, his mind drifted into subtleties andthe demon change came again. He closed his easel. Rome, Athens,Constantinople, the occident, all knew him, gave him brief welcome andquick farewells.
The years were passing; as he had gone from idleness to art, from art tohistory, and from history to archaeology by easy steps, so he passednow, successively to religion, to philosophy, and to its last broadexponent, theosophy.
The severity of this last creed fitted the crucifixion of his spirit.Its contemplation showed him vacancies in his education and so he wentto Jena for additional study. This decision was reached mainly throughthe suggestion of a chance acquaintance named Abingdon, who had comeinto his life during his first summer on the continent. They met sooften that the face of this man had became familiar, and one day, gladto hear his native tongue, he addressed him and was not repelled.
Abingdon gave to Edward Morgan his confidence; it was not important; abarrister in an English interior town, he crossed the channel annuallyfor ramble in the by-ways of Europe. It had been his unbroken habit formany years.
From this time the two men met often and journeyed much together, theelder seeming to find a pleasure in the gravity and earnestness of theyoung man, and he in turn a relief in the nervous, jerky lawyer, lookingalways through small, half-closed eyes and full of keen conceptions. Andwhen apart, occasionally he would get a characteristic note fromAbingdon and send a letter in reply. He had so much spare time.
This man had once surprised him with the remark:
"If I were twenty years younger I would go to Jena and study vibration.It is the greatest force of the universe. It is the secret of creation."The more Edward dwelt upon this remark, in connection with modernresults and invention, the more he was struck with it. Why go to Jena tostudy vibration was something that he could not fathom, nor in allprobability could Abingdon. America was really the advanced line ofdiscovery, but nevertheless he went, and with important results; andthere in the old town, finding the new hobby so intimately connectedwith music, to which he was passionately devoted, he took up withrenewed energy his neglected violin. With feverish toil he struggledalong the border land of study and speculation, until he felt that therewas nothing more possible for him--in Jena.
In Jena his solitary friend had been the eminent Virdow and to him hebecame an almost inseparable companion.
The confidence and speculations of Virdow, extending far beyond thelimits of a lecture stand, carried Edward into dazzling fields. Theintercourse extended through the best part of several years. On leavingJena he was armed with a knowledge of the possibilities of the vastfield he had entered upon, with a knowledge of thorough bass andharmony, and with a technique that might have made him famous had heapplied his knowledge. He did not apply it!
His final stand had been Paris. Abingdon was there. Abingdon haddiscovered a genius and carried Edward to see him. He had been passingthrough an obscure quarter when he was attracted by the singular pathosof a violin played in a garret. To use his expression, "the musicglorified the miserable street." Everybody there knew Benoni, the blindviolinist. And to this man, awed and silent, came Edward, a listener.
No words can express the meaning that lay in the blind man'simprovisations; only music could contain them. And only one man in Pariscould answer! When having heard the heart language, the heart historyand cravings of the player expressed in the solitude of thathalf-lighted garret, Edward took the antique instrument and replied, theanswer was overwhelming. The blind man understood; he threw his armsabout the player and embraced him.
"Grand!" he cried. "A master plays, but it is incomplete; the final notehas not come; the harmony died where it should have become immortal!"And Edward knew it.
From that meeting sprang a warm friendship, the most complete thatMorgan had ever known! It made the old man comfortable, gained himbetter quarters and broadened the horizon toward which his sun of lifewas setting. It would go down with some of the colors of its morning.
It became Edward's custom to take his old friend to hear the best operasand concerts, and one night they heard the immortal Cambia sing. It wasa charity concert and her first appearance in many years.
When the idol of the older Paris came to the footlights for the sixthtime to bow her thanks for the ovation given her, she smiled and sang inGerman a love song, indescribable in its passion and tenderness. It wasa burst of melody from the heart of some man, great one moment in hislife at least. Edward found himself standing when the tumult ceased.Benoni had sunk from his chair to his knees and was but half-conscious.The excitement had partially paralyzed him. The lithe fingers of theleft hand were dead. They would never rest again upon the strings of hisgreat violin--the Cremona to which in sickness and poverty, although itssale would have enriched him, he clung with the faith and instinct ofthe artist.
There came the day when Edward was ready to depart to America. He wentto say good-bye, and this is what happened: The old man held Edward'shands long in silence, but his lips moved in prayer; then lifting theinstrument, he placed it in the young man's arms.
"Take it," he said. "I may never meet you again. It is the one thingthat I have been true to all my life. I will not leave it to the baseand heartless." And so Edward, to please him, accepted the trust. Hewould return some day; many hours should the violin sing for the oldman. As he stood he drew the bow and played one strain of Cambia's songand the blind man lifted his face in sudden excitement. As Edward pausedhe called the notes until it was complete. "Now again," he said,singing:
If thou couldst love me As I do love thee, Then wouldst thou come to me, Come to me. Never forsaking me, Never, oh, never Forsaking me. Oceans may roll between, Thine home and thee Love, if thou lovest me Lovest me, What care we, you and I? Through all eternity, I love thee, darling one, Love me; love me.
"You have found the secret," said Benoni; "the chords on the loweroctaves made the song."
And so they had parted! The blind man to wait for the final summons; theyoung man to plunge into complications beyond his wildest dreams.
"A man," said Virdow once, "is a tribe made up of himself, his familyand his friends." And this was the history in outline of the man to whomRita Morgan handed the violin that fateful day when Gerald lay face downamong the pillows of his divan.
Recognizing in the delicate and excitable organism before him thepossibilities of emotion and imagination, Edward prepared to play.Without hesitation he drew the bow across the strings and began a solemnprelude to a choral. And as he played he noticed the heaving form belowhim grow still. Then Gerald lifted his face and gazed past the player,with an intensity of vision that deepened until he seemed in the graspof some stupendous power or emotion. Edward played the recital; thestory of Calvary, the crucifixion and the mourning women, and the marchof soldiers. Finally there came the tumult of bursting storm and riventombs. The climax of action occurred there; it was to die away into amovement fitted to the resurrection and the peaceful holiness ofChrist's meeting with Mary. But before this latter movement began Geraldleaped upon the player with the quickness and fury of a tiger and by thesuddenness of the onset nearly bore him to the floor. This mad assaultwas accompanied by a shriek of mingled fear and horror.
"Back--would you murder her?" By a great effort Edward freed himself andthe endangered violin, and forced the assailant to the divan. Theoctoroon was kneeling by his side weeping.
"Leave him to me," she said. Stunned and inexpressibly shocked Ed
wardwithdrew. The grasp on his throat had been like steel! The marksremained.
"I have," he wrote that night in a letter to Virdow, "heard you morethan once express the hope that you would some day be able to visitAmerica. Come now, at once! I have here entered upon a new life and needyour help. Further, I believe I can help you."
After describing the circumstances already related, the lettercontinued: "The susceptibility of this mind to music I regard as one ofthe most startling experiences I have ever known, and it will afford youan opportunity for testing your theories under circumstances you cannever hope for again. Let me say to you here that I am now convinced bysome intuitive knowledge that the assault upon me was based upon amemory stirred by the sound of the violin; that vibration created anewin the delicate mind some picture that had been forgotten and broughtback again painful emotions that were ungovernable. I cannot think butthat it is to have a bearing upon the concealed facts of my life; thediscovery of which is my greatest object now, as in the past. And Icannot but believe that your advice and discretion will guide me in thetreatment and care of this poor being, perhaps to the extent ofaffecting a radical change, and leave him a happier and a more rationalbeing.
"Come to me, my friend, at once! I am troubled and perplexed. And do notbe offended that I have inclosed exchange for an amount large enough tocover expenses. I am now rich beyond the comprehension of youreconomical German mind, and surely I may be allowed, in the interests ofscience, of my ward and myself to spend from the abundant store. I lookfor you early. In the meantime, I will be careful in my experiments.Come at once! _The mind has an independent memory and you candemonstrate it._"
Edward knew that there was more on that concluding sentence than in therest of the letter and exchange combined, and half-believing it, hestated it as a prophecy. He was preparing to retire, when it occurred tohim that the strange occupant of the wing-room might need his attention.Something like affection had sprung up in his heart for the unfortunatebeing who, with chains heavier than his own, had missed the diversion ofnew scenes, the broadening, the soothing of great landscapes andboundless oceans. A pity moved him to descend and to knock at the door.There was no answer. He entered to find the apartment deserted, but thecurtain was drawn from the doorway of the glass-room and he passed in.Upon the bed in the yellow light of the moon lay the slender figure ofGerald, one arm thrown around the disordered hair, the other hanginglistless from his side.
He approached and bent above the bed. The face turned upward thereseemed like wax in the oft-broken gloom. The sleeper had not stirred. Itwas the vibration of chords in harmony, that had moved him. Would ithave power again? He hesitated a moment, then returned quickly to thewing-room and secured his instrument. Concealing himself he waited. Itwas but a moment.
The wind brought the branches of the nearest oleanders against the frailwalls, and the play of lightning had become continuous. Then began inearnest the tumult of the vast sound waves as they met in the vaporycaverns of the sky. The sleeper tossed restlessly upon his bed; he wasstirred by a vague but unknown power; yet something was wanting.
At this moment Edward lifted his violin and, catching the storm note,wove a solemn strain into the diapason of the mighty organ of the sky.And as he played, as if by one motion, the sleeper stood alone in themiddle of the room. Again Edward saw that frenzied stare fixed uponvacancy, but there was no furious leap of the agile limbs; by a powerfuleffort the struggling mind seemed to throw off a weight and the sleeperawoke.
The bow was now suspended; the music had ceased. Gerald rushed to hiseasel and, standing in a sea of electric flame, outlined with swiftstrokes a woman's face and form. She was struggling in the grasp of aman and her face was the face of the artist who worked. But suchexpression! Agony, horror, despair!
The figure of the man was not complete from the waist down; his face wasconcealed. Between them, as they contended, was a child's coffin in thearms of the woman. Overhead were the bare outlines of an arch.
The artist hesitated and added behind the group a tree, whose branchesseemed to lash the ground. And there memory failed; the crayon fell fromhis fingers; he stood listless by the canvas. Then with a cry he buriedhis face in his hands and wept.
As he stood thus, the visitor, awed but triumphant, glided through thedoor and disappeared in the wing-room. He knew that he had touched ahidden chord; that the picture on the canvas was born under theflashlight of memory! Was it brain? Oh, for the wisdom of Virdow!
Sympathy moved him to return again to the glass-room. It was empty!