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Among all these ladies the one most conspicuous for style, intellect, and beauty was a Dunkirk lady, named Madame F , an excellent musician, full of gayety, grace, and youth; it was impossible for Madame F not to turn many heads.
The poet, the painter, the sculptor and the musician each has his own problem to solve, and the pianist in particular is frequently brought to the verge of despair through the fact that the instrument, in requiring the expenditure of physical and nervous energy, absorbs, so to speak, a large proportion of the intensity which the music demands.
There, of course, the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how he first came to the villa. "He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine.
After the musician had left the burgomaster's house, he went to young Herr Matanesse Van Wibisma's aunt to get his cloak, which had not been returned to him. He did not usually give much heed to his dress, yet he was glad that the rain kept people in the house, for the outgrown wrap on his shoulders was by no means pleasing in appearance.
The latter, after having rested for a few minutes, went on, "The man who picked up Sarah was an old German artist, painter and musician both, of rare genius, but a maniac, as they called him. At all events, he was a good, an excellent man.
Turning abruptly to Errington she continued: "Will you play instead?" Max hesitated a moment, then resumed his place at the piano, and, after a pause, the three grave notes with which Rachmaninoff's wonderful "Prelude" opens, broke the silence. It was speedily evident that Errington was a musician of no mean order; indeed, many a professional reputation has been based on a less solid foundation.
"Very well," replied the musician; and he silenced the singers, who were hazarding various impertinent guesses as to the arrival of so pretty a girl just when Caesar was expected. As Melissa dropped her veil the splendor of the scene, lighted up by numberless tapers and lamps, forced itself on her attention.
The air, unrecognized at first, called up a memory of old-fashioned parlors and of his grandmother. He found himself struggling for words to fit the tune; and suddenly they sprang into his mind "Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta." Thrice over the unseen musician played the air, and let it die with a last, lingering chord. Suddenly his heart gave a great leap.
"I am very glad," said Zara, "I know you are a musician, and I think there can be no bitterer fate than for one belonging to your art to be incapacitated from performance of work by some physical obstacle. Poor grand old Beethoven! Can anything be more pitiful to think of than his deafness? Yet how splendidly he bore up against it!
Having only two daughters, he saw no way but that of marrying one of us into the Italian nobility. "My sister was the first to disappoint him. She fell in love with a young Roman musician. The first time the young man asked for my sister he was contemptuously refused; the second time he was insulted; the third time he was flung out of the house.
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