“Well, I am not drunk,” said the clarinetist, folding his arms.
“But will you not just try wh—” Here Jack, choked by the effort to be persuasive and polite, burst out raging: “It can be done. It shall be done. It must be done. You are the best clarinet player in England. I know what you can do.” And Jack shook his fists wildly at the man as if he were accusing him of some infamous crime. But the compliment was loudly applauded, and the man reddened, not altogether displeased. A cornist who sat near him said soothingly in an Irish accent, “Aye, do, Joe. Try it.”
“You will: you can,” shouted Jack reassuringly, recovering his self-command. “Back to the double bar. Now!” The music recommenced; and the clarinetist, overborne, took up his instrument, and, when the passage was reached, played it easily, greatly to his own astonishment. The brilliancy of the effect, too, raised him for a time into a prominence which rivaled that of the pianist. The orchestra positively interrupted the movement to applaud it; and Jack joined in with high good humor.
“If you are uneasy about it,” said he, with an undisguised chuckle, “I can hand it over to the violins.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” said the clarinetist. “Now I’ve got it, I’ll keep it.”
Jack rubbed his nose until it glowed like a coal, and the movement proceeded without another stoppage, the men now seeing that Jack was in his right place. But when a theme marked andante cantabile, which formed the middle section of the fantasia, was commenced by the pianist, Jack turned to her, said quicker. Plus vite;” and began to mark his beat by striking the desk. She looked at him anxiously; played a few bars in the time indicated by him; and then threw up her hands and stopped.
“I cannot,” she exclaimed. “I must play it more slowly or not at all.”
“Certainly, it shall be slower if you desire it,” said the elder lady from the steps. Jack looked at her as he sometimes looked at Mrs Simpson. “Certainly it shall not be slower, if all the angels desired it,” he said, in well pronounced but barbarously ungrammatical French. Go on and take the time from my beat.
The Polish lady shook her head; folded her hands in her lap; and looked patiently at the music before her. There was a moment of silence, during which Jack, thus mutely defied, glared at her with distorted features. Manilius rose irresolutely. Jack stepped down from the desk; handed him the stick; and said in a smothered voice, “Be good enough to conduct this lady’s portion of the fantasia. When my music recommences, I will return.”
Manlius took the stick and mounted the desk, the orchestra receiving him with applause. In the midst of it Jack went out, giving the pianist a terrible look as he passed her, and transferring it to her companion, who raised her eyebrows and shoulders contemptuously.
Manlius was not the man to impose his own ideas of a composition on a refractory artist; and though he was privately disposed to agree with Jack that the Polish lady was misjudging the speed of the movement, he obediently followed her playing with his beat. But he soon lost his first impression, and began to be affected by a dread lest anyone should make a noise in the room. He moved his stick as quietly as possible, and raised his left hand as if to still the band, who were, however, either watching the pianist intently or playing without a trace of the expert offhandedness which they had affected at first. The pleasure of listening made Manlius forget to follow the score. When he roused himself and found his place, he perceived that the first horn player was altering a passage completely, though very happily. Looking questioningly in that direction, he saw Jack sitting beside the man with a pencil in his hand. Manlius observed for the first time that he had an expressive face and remarkable eyes, and was not, as he had previously seemed, unmitigatedly ugly. Meanwhile the knot of old gentlemen in the stalls, who had previously chattered subduedly, became quite silent; and a few of them closed their eyes rapturously. The lady on the steps alone did not seem to care about the music. At last the flow of melody waned and broke into snatches. The pianoforte seemed to appeal to the instruments to continue the song. A melancholy strain from the violas responded hopelessly; but the effect of this was marred by a stir in the orchestra. The trombone and trumpet players, hitherto silent, were taking up their instruments and pushing up their moustaches. The drummer, after some hasty screwing round his third drum, poised his sticks; and a supernumerary near him rose, cymbals in hand; fixed his eye on Manlius, and apparently stood ready to clap the head of the trumpet player in front of him as a lady claps a moth flying from a woolen curtain. Manlius looked at the score as if he did not quite understand the sequel. Suddenly, as the violas ceased,Jack shouted in a startling voice, “Let it be an avalanche from the top to the bottom of the Himalayas;” and rushed to the conductor’s desk. Manlius made way for him precipitately; and a tremendous sound followed. “Louder,” roared Jack. Less noise and more tone. Out with it like fifty million devils.” As he led the movement at a merciless speed. The pianist looked bewildered, like the band, most of whom lost their places after the first fifty bars; but when the turn of a player came, he found the conductor glaring at him, and was swept into his part without clearly knowing how. It was an insensate orgies of sound. Gay melodies, daintily given out by the pianoforte, or by the string instruments, were derisively brayed out immediately afterwards by cornets, harmonized in thirds with the most ingenious vulgarity. Cadenzas, agilely executed by the Poish lady, were uncouthly imitated by the double basses. Themes constructed like ballads with choruses were introduced instead of orthodox “subjects.” The old gentlemen in the stalls groaned and protested. The Polish lady, incommoded by the capricious and often excessive speed required of her, held on gallantly, Jack all the time grinding his teeth, dancing, gesticulating, and by turns shshsh-shing at the orchestra, or shouting to them for more tone and less noise. Even the lady on the steps had begun to nod to the impetuous rhythm, when the movement ended as suddenly as it had begun; and all the players rose to their feet, laughing and applauding heartily. Manlius, from whose mind the fantasia had banished all prejudice as to Jack’s rank as a musician, shook his hand warmly. The Polish lady, her face transfigured by musical excitement, offered her hand too. Jack took it and held it, saying abruptly, “Listen to me. You were quite right; and I am a fool. I did not know what there was in my own music, and would have spoiled it if you had not prevented me. You are a great player, because you get the most beautiful tone possible from every note you touch, and you make every phrase say all that it was meant to say, and more. You are an angel. I would rather hear you play scales than hear myself play sonatas. And—” here he lowered his voice and drew her aside— “I rely on you to make my work succeed at the concert. Manlius will conduct the band; but you must conduct Manlius. It is not enough to be a gentleman and a contrapuntist in order to conduct. You comprehend?”
“Yes, Monsieur; I understand perfectly, perfectly. I will do my best. I shall be inspired. How magnificent it is!”
“Allow me to congratulate you, sir,” said one of the old gentlemen, advancing. “Myself and colleagues have been greatly struck by your work. I am empowered to say on their behalf that whatever difference of opinion there may be among us as to the discretion with which you have employed your powers, of the extraordinary nature of those powers there can no longer be a doubt; and we are thoroughly gratified at having chosen for performance a work which displays so much originality and talent as your fantasia.”
“Ten years ago” said Jack, looking steadily at him, “I might have been glad to hear you say so. At present the time for compliments is past, unless you wish to congratulate me on the private interest that has gained my work a hearing. My talent and originality have been a my chief allies here.”
“Are you not a little hasty?” said the gentleman, disconcerted, “Success comes late in London; and you are still, if I may say so, a comparatively young man.”
“I am not old enough to harp on being comparatively young. I am thirty-four years old; and if I had adopted any other profession than that of composer of music, I should have been seeing a respectable livelihood by this time. As it is, I have never made a farthing by my compositions. I don’t blame those who have Stood between me and the public: their ignorance is their misfortune, and not their fault. But now that I have come to light by a chance in spite of their teeth, I am not in the humor