Part 15

Only during the Kermesse, or at carnival-time, when noisy revelers of either sex and ungainly processions of tipsy masques and mummers waked Mechelen out of its long sleep, and all the town seemed one vast estaminet, did one feel one's self to be alive. Even at night, and in the small hours, frisky masques and dominoes walked the moonlit streets, and made loud old Flemish mediæval love, à la Teniers.

There was a beautiful botanical garden, through which a river flowed under tall trees, and turned the wheels of the oldest flour-mills in Flanders. This was a favorite resort of Barty's,--and he had it pretty much to himself.

And for Lady Caroline there were, besides St. Rombault, quite half-a-dozen churches almost as magnificent if not so big, and in them as many as you could wish of old Flemish masters, beginning with Peter Paul Rubens, who pervades the land of his birth very much as Michael Angelo pervades Florence and Rome.

And these dim places of Catholic worship were generously open to all, every day and all day long, and never empty of worshippers, high and low, prostrate in the dust, or kneeling with their arms extended and their heads in the air, their wide-open, immovable, unblinking eyes hypnotized into stone by the cross and the crown of thorns. Mostly peasant women, these: with their black hoods falling from their shoulders, and stiff little close white caps that hid the hair.

Out of cool shadowy recesses of fretted stone and admirably carved wood emanations seemed to rise as from the long-forgotten past--tons of incense burnt hundreds of years ago, and millions of closely packed supplicants, rich and poor, following each other in secula seculorum! Lady Caroline spent many of her hours haunting these crypts--and praying there.

At the back of their house in the Rue des Ursulines Blanches, Barty's bedroom window overlooked the playground of the convent "des Soeurs Rédemptoristines": all noble ladies, most beautifully dressed In scarlet and ultramarine, with long snowy veils, and who were Waited upon by non-noble sisters in garments of a like hue but less expensive texture.

So at least said little Finche Torfs, the daughter of the house--little Frau, as Lady Caroline called her, and who seems to have been one of the best creatures in the world; she became warmly attached to both her lodgers, who reciprocated the feeling in full; it was her chief pleasure to wait on them and look after them at all times of the day, though Lady Caroline had already a devoted maid of her own.

Little Frau's father was a well-to-do burgher with a prosperous ironmongery in the "Petit Brul."

This was his private house, where he pursued his hobby, for he was an amateur photographer, very fond of photographing his kind and simple-minded old wife, who was always attired in rich Brussels silks and Mechelen lace on purpose. She even cooked in them, though not for her lodgers, whose mid-day and evening meals were sent from "La Cigogne," close by, in four large round tins that fitted into each other, and were carried in a wicker-work cylindrical basket. And it was little Frau's delight to descant on the qualities of the menu as she dished and served it. I will not attempt to do so.

But after little Frau had cleared it all away, Barty would descant on the qualities of certain English dishes he remembered, to the immense amusement of Aunt Caroline, who was reasonably fond of what is good to eat.

He would paint in words (he was better in words than any other medium--oil, water, or distemper) the boiled leg of mutton, not overdone; the mashed turnips; the mealy potato; the caper-sauce. He would imitate the action of the carver and the sound of the carving-knife making its first keen cut while the hot pink gravy runs down the sides. Then he would wordily paint a French roast chicken and its rich brown gravy and its water-cresses; the pommes sautées; the crisp, curly salade aux fines herbes! And Lady Caroline, still hungry, would laugh till her eyes watered, as well as her mouth.

When it came to the sweets, the apple-puddings and gooseberry-pies and Devonshire cream and brown sugar, there was no more laughing, for then Barty's talent soared to real genius--and genius is a serious thing. And as to his celery and Stilton cheese--But there! it's lunch-time, and I'm beginning to feel a little puckish myself....

Every morning when it was fine Barty and his aunt would take an airing round the town, which was enclosed by a ditch where there was good skating in the winter, on long skates that went very fast, but couldn't cut figures, 8 or 3!

There were no fortifications or ramparts left. But a few of the magnificent old brick gateways still remained, admitting you to the most wonderful old streets with tall pointed houses--clean little slums, where women sat on their door-steps making the most beautiful lace in the world--odd nooks and corners and narrow ways where it was easy to lose one's self, small as the town really was; innumerable little toy bridges over toy canals one could have leaped at a bound, overlooked by quaint, irregular little dwellings, of colors that had once been as those of the rainbow, but which time had mellowed into divine harmonies, as it does all it touches--from grand old masters to oak palings round English parks; from Venice to Mechelen and its lace; from a disappointed first love to a great sorrow.

Occasionally a certain distinguished old man of soldier-like aspect would pass them on horseback, and gaze at their two tall British figures with a look of curious and benign interest, as if he mentally wished them well, and well away from this drear limbo of penitence and exile and expiation.

They learnt that he was French, and a famous general, and that his name was Changarnier; and they understood that public virtue has to be atoned for.

And he somehow got into the habit of bowing to them with a good smile, and they would smile and bow back again. Beyond this they never exchanged a word, but this little outward show and ceremony of kindly look and sympathetic gesture always gave them a pleasant moment and helped to pass the morning.

All the people they met were to Lady Caroline like people in a dream: silent priests; velvet-footed nuns, who were much to her taste; quiet peasant women, in black cloaks and hoods, driving bullock-carts or carts drawn by dogs, six or eight of these inextricably harnessed together and panting for dear life; blue-bloused men in French caps, but bigger and blonder than Frenchmen, and less given to epigrammatic repartee, with mild, blue, beery eyes, _à fleur de tête_, and a look of health and stolid amiability; sturdy green-coated little soldiers with cock-feathered brigand hats of shiny black, the brim turned up over the right eye and ear that they might the more conveniently take a good aim at the foe before he skedaddled at the mere sight of them; fat, comfortable burgesses and their wives, so like their ancestors who drink beer out of long glasses and smoke long clay pipes on the walls of the Louvre and the National Gallery that they seemed like old friends; and quaint old heavy children who didn't make much noise!

And whenever they spoke French to you, these good people, they said "savez-vous?" every other second; and whenever they spoke Flemish to each other it sounded so much like your own tongue as it is spoken in the north of England that you wondered why on earth you couldn't understand a single word.

Now and then, from under a hood, a handsome dark face with Spanish eyes would peer out--eloquent of the past history of the Low Countries, which Barty knew much better than I. But I believe there was once a Spanish invasion or occupation of some kind, and I dare say the fair Belgians are none the worse for it to-day. (It might even have been good for some of us, perhaps, if that ill-starred Armada hadn't come so entirely to grief. I'm fond of big, tawny-black eyes.)

All this, so novel and so strange, was a perpetual feast for Lady Caroline. And they bought nice, cheap, savory things on the way home, to eke out the lunch from "la Cigogne."

In the afternoon Barty would take a solitary walk in the open country, or along one of those endless straight _chaussées_, paved in the middle, and bordered by equidistant poplars on either side, and leading from town to town, and the monotonous perspective of which is so desolating to heart and eye; backwards or forwards, it is always the same, with a flat sameness of outlook to right and left, and every 450 seconds the chime would boom and flounder heavily by, with a dozen sharp railway whistles after it, like swordfish after a whale, piercing it through and through.

Barty evidently had all this in his mind when he wrote the song of the seminarist in "Gleams," beginning:

"Twas April, and the sky was clear, An east wind blowing keenly; The sun gave out but little cheer, For all it shone serenely. The wayside poplars, all arow, For many a weary mile did throw Down on the dusty flags below Their shadows, picked out cleanly." Etc., etc., etc.

(Isn't it just like Barty to begin a lyric that will probably last as long as the English language with an innocent jingle worthy of a school-boy?)

After dinner, in the evening, it was Lady Caroline's delight to read aloud, while Barty smoked his cigarettes and inexpensive cigars--a concession on her part to make him happy, and keep him as much with her as she could; and she grew even to like the smell so much that once or twice, when he went to Antwerp for a couple of days to stay with Tescheles, she actually had to burn some of his tobacco on a red-hot shovel, for the scent of it seemed to spell his name for her and make his absence less complete.

Thus she read to him _Esmond_, _Hypatia_, _Never too Late to Mend_, _Les Maîtres Sonneurs_, _La Mare au Diable_, and other delightful books, English and French, which were sent once a week from a circulating library in Brussels. How they blessed thy name, good Baron Tauchnitz!

"Oh, Aunt Caroline, if I could _only_ illustrate books! If I could only illustrate _Esmond_ and draw a passable Beatrix coming down the old staircase at Castlewood with her candle!" said Barty, one night.

That was not to be. Another was to illustrate _Esmond_, a poor devil who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering from a like disorder.[1]

[Footnote 1: ("Un malheureux, vêtu de noir, Qui me ressemblait comme un frère ..."--Ed.)]

As a return, Barty would sing to her all he knew, in five languages--three of which neither of them quite understood--accompanying himself on the piano or guitar. Sometimes she would play for him accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas Barty didn't know a single note, and picked up everything by ear. She practised these accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school-girl.

Then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk about--what had just been read or played or sung, and many other things: the present, the past, and the future. All their old affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by pity on one side, gratitude on the other--and a little remorse on both. And there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and uncertain.

Sometimes l'Abbé Lefebvre, one of the professors at the séminaire and an old friend of Lady Caroline's, would come to drink tea, and talk politics, which ran high in Mechelen. He was a most accomplished and delightful Frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored Balzac--and even owned to a fondness for good old Paul de Kock, of whom it is said that when the news of his death reached Pius the Ninth, his Holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed:

"Mio caro Paolo di Kocco!"

Now and then the Abbé would bring with him a distinguished young priest, a Dominican--also a professor; Father Louis, of the princely house of Aremberg, who died a Cardinal three years ago.

Father Louis had an admirable and highly cultivated musical gift, and played to them Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and Schumann--and this music, as long as it lasted (and for some time after), was to Barty as great a source of consolation as of unspeakable delight; and therefore to his aunt also. Though I'm afraid she preferred any little French song of Barty's to all the Schumanns in the world.

First of all, the priest would play the "Moonlight Sonata," let us say; and Barty would lean back and listen with his eyes shut, and almost believe that Beethoven was talking to him like a father, and pointing out to him how small was the difference, really, between the greatest earthly joy and the greatest earthly sorrow: these were not like black and white, but merely different shades of gray, as on moonlit things a long way off! and Time, what a reconciler it was--like distance! and Death, what a perfect resolution of all possible discords, and how certain! and our own little life, how short, and without importance! what matters whether it's to-day, this small individual flutter of ours; or was a hundred years ago; or will be a hundred years hence! it has or had to be got through--and it's better past than to come.

[Illustration: "THE MOONLIGHT SONATA"]

"It all leads to the same divine issue, my poor friend," said Beethoven; "why, just see here--I'm stone-deaf, and can't hear a note of what I'm singing to you! But it is not about _that_ I weep, when I am weeping. It was terrible when it first came on, my deafness, and I could no longer hear the shepherd's pipe or the song of the lark; but it's well worth going deaf, to hear all that _I_ do. I have to write everything down, and read it to myself; and my tears fall on the ruled paper, and blister the lines, and make the notes run into each other; and when I try to blot it all out, there's that still left on the page, which, turned into sound by good father Louis the Dominican, will tell you, if you can only hear it aright, what is not to be told in any human speech; not even that of Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Erasmus, or Shakespeare; not even that of Christ himself, who speaks through me from His unknown grave, because I am deaf and cannot hear the distracting words of men--poor, paltry words at their best, which mean so many things at once that they mean just nothing at all. It's a Tower of Babel. Just stop your ears and listen with your heart and you will hear all that you can see when you shut your eyes or have lost them--and those are the only realities, mein armer Barty!"

Then the good Mozart would say:

"Lieber Barty--I'm so stupid about earthly things that I could never even say Boh to a goose, so I can't give you any good advice; all my heart overflowed into my brain when I was quite a little boy and made music for grown-up people to hear; from the day of my birth to my fifth birthday I had gone on remembering everything, but learning nothing new--remembering all that music!

"And I went on remembering more and more till I was thirty-five; and even then there was such a lot more of it where that came from that it tired me to try and remember so much--and I went back thither. And thither back shall you go too, Barty--when you are some thirty years older!

"And you already know from me how pleasant life is there--how sunny and genial and gay; and how graceful and innocent and amiable and well-bred the natives--and what beautiful prayers we sing, and what lovely gavottes and minuets we dance--and how tenderly we make love--and what funny tricks we play! and how handsome and well dressed and kind we all are--and the likes of you, how welcome! Thirty years is soon over, Barty, Barty! Bel Mazetto! Ha, ha! good!"

Then says the good Schubert:

"I'm a loud, rollicking, beer-drinking Kerl, I am! Ich bin ein lustiger Student, mein Pardy; and full of droll practical jokes; worse than even you, when you were a young scapegrace in the Guards, and wrenched off knockers, and ran away with a poor policeman's hat! But I don't put my practical jokes into my music; if I did, I shouldn't be the poor devil I am! I'm very hungry when I go to bed, and when I wake up in the morning I have Katzenjammer (from an empty stomach) and a headache, and a heartache, and penitence and shame and remorse; and know there is nothing in this world or beyond it worth a moment's care but Love, Love, Love! Liebe, Liebe! The good love that knows neither concealment nor shame--from the love of the brave man for the pure maiden whom he weds, to the young nun's love of the Lord! and all the other good loves lie between these two, and are inside them, or come out of them, ... and that's the love I put into my music. Indeed, my music is the only love I know, since I am not beautiful to the eye, and can only care for tunes!...

"But you, Pardy, are handsome and gallant and gay, and have always been well beloved by man and woman and child, and always will be; and know how to love back again--even a dog! however blind you go, you will always have that, the loving heart--and as long as you can hear and sing, you will always have my tunes to fall back upon...."

"And mine!" says Chopin. "If there's one thing sweeter than love, it's the sadness that it can't last; _she_ loved me once--and now she loves _tout le monde_! and that's a little sweet melodic sadness of mine that will never fail you, as long as there's a piano within your reach, and a friend who knows how to play me on it for you to hear. You shall revel in my sadness till you forget your own. Oh, the sorrow of my sweet pipings! Whatever becomes of your eyes, keep your two ears for _my_ sake; and for your sake too! You don't know what exquisite ears you've got. You are like me--you and I are made of silk, Barty--as other men are made of sackcloth; and their love, of ashes; and their joys, of dust!

"Even the good priest who plays me to you so glibly doesn't understand what I am talking about half so well as _you_ do, who can't read a word I write! He had to learn my language note by note from the best music-master in Brussels. It's your mother-tongue! You learned it as you sucked at your sweet young mother's breast, my poor love-child! And all through her, your ears, like your remaining eye, are worth a hatful of the common kind--and some day it will be the same with your heart and brain...."

"Yes"--continues Schumann--"but you'll have to suffer first--like me, who will have to kill myself very soon; because I am going mad--and that's worse than any blindness! and like Beethoven who went deaf, poor demigod! and like all the rest of us who've been singing to you to-night; that's why our songs never pall--because we are acquainted with grief, and have good memories, and are quite sincere. The older you get, the more you will love us and our songs: other songs may come and go in the ear; but ours go ringing in the heart forever!"

In some such fashion did the great masters of tune and tone Discourse to Barty through Father Louis's well-trained finger-tips. They always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self-love! The finger-tips (whosesoever's finger-tips they be) have only to be intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them in a true, reverent spirit. Anything beyond may be unpardonable impertinence, both to the great masters and yourself.

Musicians will tell you that all this is nonsense from beginning to end; you mustn't believe musicians about music, nor wine-merchants about wine--but vice versa!

When Father Louis got up from the music-stool, the Abbé would say to Barty, in his delightful, pure French:

"And now, mon ami--just for _me_, you know--a little song of autrefois."

"All right, M. l'Abbé--I will sing you the 'Adelaïde,' of Beethoven ... if Father Louis will play for me."

"Oh, non, mon ami, do not throw away such a beautiful organ as yours on such really beautiful music, which doesn't want it; it would be sinful waste; it's not so much the tune that I want to hear as the fresh young voice; sing me something French, something light, something amiable and droll; that I may forget the song, and only remember the singer."

"All right, M. l'Abbé," and Barty sings a delightful little song by Gustave Nadaud, called "Petit bonhomme vit encore."

And the good Abbé is in the seventh heaven, and quite forgets to forget the song.

And so, cakes and wine, and good-night--and M. l'Abbé goes humming all the way home....

"Hé, quoi! pour des peccadilles Gronder ces pauvres amours? Les femmes sont si gentilles, Et l'on n'aime pas toujours! C'est bonhomme Qu'on me nomme.... Ma gaîté, c'est mon trésor! Et bonhomme vit encor'-- Et bonhomme vit encor'!"

An extraordinary susceptibility to musical sound was growing in Barty since his trouble had overtaken him, and with it an extraordinary sensitiveness to the troubles of other people, their

## partings and bereavements and wants, and aches and pains, even those

of people he didn't know; and especially the woes of children, and dogs and cats and horses, and aged folk--and all the live things that have to be driven to market and killed for our eating--or shot at for our fun!

All his old loathing of sport had come back, and he was getting his old dislike of meat once more, and to sicken at the sight of a butcher's shop; and the sight of a blind man stirred him to the depths ... even when he learnt how happy a blind man can be!

These unhappy things that can't be helped preoccupied him as if he had been twenty, thirty, fifty years older; and the world seemed to him a shocking place, a gray, bleak, melancholy hell where there was nothing but sadness, and badness, and madness.

And bit by bit, but very soon, all his old trust in an all-merciful, all-powerful ruler of the universe fell from him; he shed it like an old skin; it sloughed itself away; and with it all his old conceit of himself as a very fine fellow, taller, handsomer, cleverer than anybody else, "bar two or three"! Such darling beliefs are the best stays we can have; and he found life hard to face without them.

And he got as careful of his aunt Caroline, and as anxious about her little fads and fancies and ailments, as if he'd been an old woman himself.

Imagine how she grew to dote on him!