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Short Fiction
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With the Violin
“And he over the mantelpiece with big black eyes, and such long black hair, and a violin; is he your brother too, Papa Konrad? And why do you keep a green branch always hanging over his picture?”
“No, that is not my brother, Sophie; that is an angel whom the good God allowed once, to save a poor desperate human being from sin and death.”
“But where are his wings. Papa Konrad? I never saw an angel look like that; and so black too!”
“There are some angels without wings, little Grissel. Not many I admit; but I have known a few.”
“Tell us how he saved the poor desperate man, Papa Konrad.”
“Well, Sophie, if you will brush up the hearth like a good little housewife; and Ernst throw some coals on the fire; and little Grissel come and sit here on my knee, I will try to tell you the story. It happened a good many weary years ago—as you little ones count them. As many years, I suppose, as Ernst has been living in the world. How old are you, Ernst?”
“Ten years old, going on eleven.”
“Then it was before your time, for it happened just twelve years ago tonight. My! but that was a cold night!”
“Colder than it is tonight, Papa Konrad?”
“Oh, far, far colder. There was no snow on the ground as there is tonight, but the air seemed filtered through ice. People hurried from one shop to another to keep away from the cold. And the coachmen, driving their fine carriages, were wrapped in great furs till only their eyes peeped out. All the shops were ablaze; but there were not many on such a night, willing to stand and look into their windows. Yet there stood the poor devil I am going to tell you about, looking into a jeweler’s big showcase, where the workmen had just laid aside their tools. Those watch-menders, whom you have seen wearing a big round glass in one eye, you know.”
“That’s what you are—a watch-mender, isn’t it, Papa Konrad?”
“To be sure, Sophie. Well, he had been inside, asking for work, and there was none for him. He had said to himself before going in, this shall be my last trial. So now he stood looking absently in at the window; the frozen air penetrating his body; for his clothes were thin and few. He was hungry, and very, very miserable. Only think, he was in a strange city, without friends, and without work, and with no money. He still had a little room, away up in the top story of a very high, rickety old building.”
“How high was the building, Papa Konrad? I bet, not so high as the little windows of the Cathedral steeple.”
“No, no, Ernst, not so high, but quite high enough, that when he reach the top he was faint and exhausted from mounting the stairs. I believe that little room was colder than outdoors. At any rate, it was more cheerless. Another lump of coal on the fire, Ernst; that’s a fine boy, and how strong! Little Grissel is not sleeping? that’s well. The broken windows were rattling in their loose casings, and the bitter cold was sweeping in gusts down the bleak chimney, through the empty fireplace and into the room. He went in and sat right down—for he had no greatcoat to stop and take off, you know. He spread his arms out on the table, and stared blankly before him through the window, into the darkness. But I think he saw nothing save his own heart that was sore and tired, and did not care to beat any longer and keep him alive. It seemed to him as if the world had pushed him aside; as if mankind had shut him out from a share in their common existence, and left him alone with a misery that he could no longer bear. The truth is, he wanted to die, and he was so reckless he never thought if the good God wanted him to go or not, before he was called. He just wanted to die; and he had something in his pocket that was going to help him end his unhappy life.”
“I know; it was a pistol, and he was going to shoot himself.”
“No, Ernst, it was not a pistol. He had none; nor money to buy one either. It was only a little white deadly powder. On the mantle-shelf there was a cracked tea cup, and an end of candle which he lighted. He wiped out the cup—for it was dusty, and he wanted that his poison be clean, at least—and in it he emptied the powder. Then he went to the pitcher to get water to pour on it; but the water was all frozen, through and through. However a little thing like that was not going to stop him. He took a rusty poker; held it in the flame of the candle till it was pretty hot, and with it he melted a little of the ice at a time, till he had what water he needed. Never mind the poker, Ernst; put it down. We don’t want to heat that one; and you scatter the ashes that Sophie just swept so nicely. Well, he went back to the table and seated himself; this time with the cup before him, and he closed his eyes a moment—not hesitatingly—only while he might bid goodbye to life, as it were. As he sat thus, there suddenly broke upon the stillness, a long low wail, like the voice of a soul that begs. Oh! but it was soft and exquisite, and it sent a quiver through the frame of the poor wretch who heard it. The sweetness of sound seemed to swell and grow broader till it filled the little room with melody such as you never heard in your lives, children. Such a blending of tones! pleading, chiding, singing out in the night. He at the table sat spellbound; now with wide-open eyes; for he was no longer in his cold bleak room. His blood tingled with a genial warmth. Hundreds of lights were blazing. He was a boy again, happy of heart seated between father and mother in a grand theater, and listening to the same wonderful music that came to him now. Ah! that would have been a moment to die in. But this enchanting voice had made him forget that he wanted to die. It had brought youth, and love, and trust, back to his old heart.”
“Papa Konrad, it must have been the angels, singing on Christmas eve!”
“That is what the poor creature thought at first himself, Sophie. What he did was to get up, and dash his cup of poison into the empty fireplace. Then he fell on his knees and wept, and thanked the good God who had chosen this way to speak to him. When he arose, he crept close, close to the door to listen, for those heavenly sounds were coming from the next room. When the music had ended, I’m sure I don’t know how he found courage to do it—he rapped gently on the door.”
“Wasn’t he afraid, Papa Konrad? Suppose it had been real angels! oh my!”
“Well, he knew it wasn’t such angels as we see in the picture books, Ernst. When he knocked a second time, the door opened, and there stood the young man whose picture you see hanging over the mantelpiece. Standing just that way, with his violin under his arm, his long black hair hanging over his forehead, and his dark eyes full of kindness. He looked puzzled at first; then threw the door wide open, and drew the unhappy man into his room. A lamp was burning brightly, and there was a good fire in the grate. Not such a fine one, to be sure, as Ernst has been making us; but it was like the glow of warm sunlight to the desolate old man. The young musician said nothing, but drew his chair up and looked fixedly at his strange guest. Then he arose, went to the cupboard, and brought out a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of beer.”
“And butter and jam? Papa Konrad?”
“No, Grissel, I’m afraid there was neither butter nor jam; but I’m sure it tasted like nectar and ambrosia. Make me think to tell you about nectar and ambrosia at our little talk next Sunday. Before the poor devil went to bed that night, he had told everything to the young violin-player, and from that moment he never wanted for a friend again.”
“That was a grand, rich young man, wasn’t he? And he gave the poor old man plenty of money?”
“No, he wasn’t rich, Ernst. He had only a little himself; but that little he shared with the other till darkness was past. If we only have patience to wait through the night, children, be sure that day will break at the close of it.”
“Where is the young man now, Papa Konrad? Is he dead, and has he got real wings on in heaven?”
“Oh! no, Sophie. Thank God he isn’t dead! He is coming to eat his Christmas dinner with me tomorrow.”
“But I thought that Herr Ludwig, the great leader of the opera, was coming to eat dinner with you; and that was why you were going to have such a grand dinner; and said we might come in and have coffee and cake afterwards!”
“Ah! to be sure—to be sure, Papa Konrad is getting old and forgets things. I hear the mother calling. Maybe Santa Claus has come and lighted the Christmas-tree.”
A No-Account Creole
I
One agreeable afternoon in late autumn two young men stood together on Canal Street, closing a conversation that had evidently begun within the clubhouse which they had just quitted.
“There’s big money in it, Offdean,” said the elder of the two. “I wouldn’t have you touch it if there wasn’t. Why, they tell me Patchly’s pulled a hundred thousand out of the concern a’ready.”
“That may be,” replied Offdean, who had been politely attentive to the words addressed to him, but whose face bore a look indicating that he was closed to conviction. He leaned back upon the clumsy stick which he carried, and continued: “It’s all true, I dare say, Fitch; but a decision of that sort would mean more to me than you’d believe if I were to tell you. The beggarly twenty-five thousand’s all I have, and I want to sleep with it under my pillow a couple of months at least before I drop it into a slot.”
“You’ll drop it into Harding & Offdean’s mill to grind out the pitiful two and a half percent commission racket; that’s what you’ll do in the end, old fellow—see if you don’t.”
“Perhaps I shall; but it’s more than likely I shan’t. We’ll talk about it when I get back. You know I’m off to north Louisiana in the morning”—
“No! What the deuce”—
“Oh, business of the firm.”
“Write me from Shreveport, then; or wherever it is.”
“Not so far as that. But don’t expect to hear from me till you see me. I can’t say when that will be.”
Then they shook hands and parted. The rather portly Fitch boarded a Prytania Street car, and Mr. Wallace Offdean hurried to the bank in order to replenish his portemonnaie, which had been materially lightened at the club through the medium of unpropitious jackpots and bobtail flushes.
He was a surefooted fellow, this young Offdean, despite an occasional fall in slippery places. What he wanted, now that he had reached his twenty-sixth year and his inheritance, was to get his feet well planted on solid ground, and to keep his head cool and clear.
With his early youth he had had certain shadowy intentions of shaping his life on intellectual lines. That is, he wanted to; and he meant to use his faculties intelligently, which means more than is at once apparent. Above all, he would keep clear of the maelstroms of sordid work and senseless pleasure in which the average American business man may be said alternately to exist, and which reduce him, naturally, to a rather ragged condition of soul.
Offdean had done, in a temperate way, the usual things which young men do who happen to belong to good society, and are possessed of moderate means and healthy instincts. He had gone to college, had traveled a little at home and abroad, had frequented society and the clubs, and had worked in his uncle’s commission-house; in all of which employments he had expended much time and a modicum of energy.
But he felt all through that he was simply in a preliminary stage of being, one that would develop later into something tangible and intelligent, as he liked to tell himself. With his patrimony of twenty-five thousand dollars came what he felt to be the turning-point in his life—the time when it behooved him to choose a course, and to get himself into proper trim to follow it manfully and consistently.
When Messrs. Harding & Offdean determined to have someone look after what they called “a troublesome piece of land on Red River,” Wallace Offdean requested to be entrusted with that special commission of land-inspector.
A shadowy, ill-defined piece of land in an unfamiliar part of his native State, might, he hoped, prove a sort of closet into which he could retire and take counsel with his inner and better self.
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