Sacred and Profane Love - Arnold Bennett (digital e reader .TXT) 📗

me, unreasoning, terror-struck shame, and I knew in an instant that while he lived I should never more play the piano. He laughed lightly when I told him, and I called myself silly. Yet now, as I sat in the garden, I saw how right I had been. And I wondered that I should ever have had the audacity even to dream of playing in his house; the idea was grotesque. And he did not ask me to play, save when there arrived new orchestral music arranged for four hands. Then I steeled myself to the ordeal of playing with him, because he wished to try over the music. And he would thank me, and say that pianoforte duets were always very enjoyable. But he did not pretend that I was not an amateur, and he never--thank God!--suggested that we should attempt Tristan again....

At last he finished. And I heard distantly the bell which he had rung for his glass of milk. And, remembering that I was not ready for the ride, I ran with guilty haste into the house and upstairs.

The two bay horses were waiting, our English groom at their heads, when I came out to the porch. Diaz was impatiently tapping his boot with his whip. He was not in the least a sporting man, but he loved the sensation of riding, and the groom would admit that he rode passably; but he loved more to strut in breeches, and to imitate in little ways the sporting man. I had learnt to ride in order to please him.

'Come along,' he exclaimed.

His eyes said: 'You are always late.' And I was. Some people always know exactly what point they have reached in the maze and jungle of the day, just as mariners are always aware, at the back of their minds, of the state of the tide. But I was not born so.

Diaz helped me to mount, and we departed, jingling through the gate and across the road into a glade of the forest, one of those long sandy defiles, banked on either side, and over-shadowed with tall oaks, which pierce the immense forest like rapiers. The sunshine slanted through the crimsoning leafwork and made irregular golden patches on the dark sand to the furthest limit of the perspective. And though we could not feel the autumn wind, we could hear it in the tree-tops, and it had the sound of the sea. The sense of well-being and of joy was exquisite. The beauty of horses, timid creatures, sensitive and graceful and irrational as young girls, is a thing apart; and what is strange is that their vast strength does not seem incongruous with it. To be above that proud and lovely organism, listening, apprehensive, palpitating, nervous far beyond the human, to feel one's self almost part of it by intimate contact, to yield to it, and make it yield, to draw from it into one's self some of its exultant vitality--in a word, to ride--yes, I could comprehend Diaz' fine enthusiasm for that! I could share it when he was content to let the horses amble with noiseless hoofs over the soft ways. But when he would gallop, and a strong wind sprang up to meet our faces, and the earth shook and thundered, and the trunks of the trees raced past us, then I was afraid. My fancy always saw him senseless at the foot of a tree while his horse calmly cropped the short grass at the sides of the path, or with his precious hand twisted and maimed! And I was in agony till he reined in. I never dared to speak to him of this fear, nor even hint to him that the joy was worth less than the peril. He would have been angry in his heart, and something in him stronger than himself would have forced him to increase the risks. I knew him! ... Ah! but when we went gently, life seemed to be ideal for me, impossibly perfect! It seemed to contain all that I could ever have demanded of it.

I looked at him sideways, so noble and sane and self-controlled. And the days in Paris had receded, far and dim and phantom-like. Was it conceivable that they had once been real, and that we had lived through them? And was this Diaz, the world-renowned darling of capitals, riding by me, a woman whom he had met by fantastic chance? Had he really hidden himself in my arms from the cruel stare of the world and the insufferable curiosity of admirers who, instead of admiring, had begun to pity? Had I in truth saved him? Was it I who would restore him to his glory? Oh, the astounding romance that my life had been! And he was with me! He shared my life, and I his! I wondered what would happen when he returned to his bright kingdom. I was selfish enough to wish that he might never return to his kingdom, and that we might ride and ride for ever in the forest.

And then we came to a circular clearing, with an iron cross in the middle, where roads met, a place such as occurs magically in some ballade of Chopin's. And here we drew rein on the leaf-strewn grass, breathing quickly, with reddened cheeks, and the horses nosed each other, with long stretchings of the neck and rattling of bits.

'So you've been writing again?' said Diaz, smiling quizzically.

'Yes,' I answered. 'I've been writing a long time, but I haven't let you know anything about it; and just to-day I've finished it.'

'What is it--another novel?'

'No; a little drama in verse.'

'Going to publish it?'

'Why, naturally.'

Diaz was aware that I enjoyed fame in England and America. He was probably aware that my books had brought me a considerable amount of money. He had read some of my works, and found them excellent--indeed, he was quite proud of my talent. But he did not, he could not, take altogether seriously either my talent or my fame. I knew that he always regarded me as a child gracefully playing at a career. For him there was only one sort of fame; all the other sorts were shadows. A supreme violinist might, perhaps, approach the real thing, in his generous mind; but he was incapable of honestly believing that any fame compared with that of a pianist. The other fames were very well, but they were paste to the precious stone, gewgaws to amuse simple persons. The sums paid to sopranos struck him as merely ridiculous in their enormity. He could not be called conceited; nevertheless, he was magnificently sure that he had been, and still was, the most celebrated person in the civilized world. Certainly he had no superiors in fame, but he would not admit the possibility of equals. Of course, he never argued such a point; it was a tacit assumption, secure from argument. And with that he profoundly reverenced the great composers. The death of Brahms affected him for years. He regarded it as an occasion for universal sorrow. Had Brahms condescended to play the piano, Diaz would have turned the pages for him, and deemed himself honoured--him whom queens had flattered!

'Did you imagine,' I began to tease him, after a pause, 'that while you are working I spend my time in merely existing?'

'You exist--that is enough, my darling,' he said. 'Strange that a beautiful woman can't understand that in existing she is doing her life's work!'

And he leaned over and touched my right wrist below the glove.

'You dear thing!' I murmured, smiling. 'How foolish you can be!'

'What's the drama about?' he asked.

'About La Valliere,' I said.

'La Valliere! But that's the kind of subject I want for my opera!'

'Yes,' I said; 'I have thought so.'

'Could you turn it into a libretto, my child?'

'No, dearest.'

'Why not?'

'Because it already is a libretto. I have written it as such.'

'For me?'

'For whom else?'

And I looked at him fondly, and I think tears came to my eyes.

'You are a genius, Magda!' he exclaimed. 'You leave nothing undone for me. The subject is the very thing to suit Villedo.'

'Who is Villedo?'

'My jewel, you don't know who Villedo is! Villedo is the director of the Opera Comique in Paris, the most artistic opera-house in Europe. He used to beg me every time we met to write him an opera.'

'And why didn't you?'

'Because I had neither the subject nor the time. One doesn't write operas after lunch in hotel parlours; and as for a good libretto--well, outside Wagner, there's only one opera in the world with a good libretto, and that's Carmen.'

Diaz, who had had a youthful operatic work performed at the Royal School of Music in London, and whose numerous light compositions for the pianoforte had, of course, enjoyed a tremendous vogue, was much more serious about his projected opera than I had imagined. He had frequently mentioned it to me, but I had not thought the idea was so close to his heart as I now perceived it to be. I had written the libretto to amuse myself, and perhaps him, and lo! he was going to excite himself; I well knew the symptoms.

'You wrote it in that little book,' he said. 'You haven't got it in your pocket?'

'No,' I answered. 'I haven't even a pocket.'

He would not laugh.

'Come,' he said--'come, let's see it.'

He gathered up his loose rein and galloped off. He could not wait an instant.

'Come along!' he cried imperiously, turning his head.

'I am coming,' I replied; 'but wait for me. Don't leave me like that, Diaz.'

The old fear seized me, but nothing could stop him, and I followed as fast as I dared.

'Where is it?' he asked, when we reached home.

'Upstairs,' I said.

And he came upstairs behind me, pulling my habit playfully, in an effort to persuade us both that his impatience was a simulated one. I had to find my keys and unlock a drawer. I took the small, silk-bound volume from the back part of the drawer and gave it to him.

'There!' I exclaimed. 'But remember lunch is ready.'

He regarded the book.

'What a pretty binding!' he said. 'Who worked it?'

'I did.'

'And, of course, your handwriting is so pretty, too!' he added, glancing at the leaves. '"La Valliere, an opera in three acts."'

We exchanged a look, each of us deliciously perturbed, and then he ran off with the book.

He had to be called three times from the garden to lunch, and he brought the book with him, and read it in snatches during the meal, and while sipping his coffee. I watched him furtively as he turned over the pages.

'Oh, you've done it!' he said at length--'you've done it! You evidently have a gift for libretto. It is neither more nor less than perfect! And the subject is wonderful!'

He rose, walked round the table, and, taking my head between his hands, kissed me.

'Magda,' he said, 'you're the cleverest girl that was ever born.'

'Then, do you think you will compose it?' I asked, joyous.

'Do I think I will compose it! Why, what do you imagine? I've already begun. It composes itself. I'm now going to read it all again in the garden. Just see that I'm not worried, will you?'

'You mean you don't want me there. You don't care for me any more.'