in her there existed a devotion to art which had never wavered. It would have seemed to her contrary to nature that Franz should be anything but a musician, and it was also quite in the order of things for them to be poor. Two younger boys, who were still at school, gave up all their leisure time to music—they had never in their lives tumbled round a football or swung a bat—and Franz believed that the elder would prove a skilful violinist. Of the little girls, one had a pure voice and a good ear, and was to be a singer—for before this Juggernaut, prejudice went down. Had anyone suggested to Frau Furst that her daughter should be a clerk, even a teacher, she would have flung up hands of horror; but music!—that was a different matter. It was, moreover, the single one of the arts, in which this staunch advocate of womanliness granted her sex a share.
"Ask Franz," she said to Maurice. "Franz knows. He will explain. All women can do is to reproduce what some one else has thought or felt."
As an immortal example of the limits set by sex, she invariably fell back on Clara Schumann, with whom she had more than once come into personal contact. In her youth, Frau Furst had had a clear soprano voice, and, to Maurice's interest, she told him how she had sometimes been sent for to the Schumann's house in the INSELSTRASSE, to sing Robert's songs for him.
"Clara accompanied me," she said, relating this, the great reminiscence of her life; "and he was there, too, although I never saw him face to face. He was too shy for that. But he was behind a screen, and sometimes he would call: 'I must alter that; it is too high;' or 'Quicker, quicker!' Sometimes even 'Bravo!'"
Her motherly ambitions for Franz knew no bounds. One of the few diversions she allowed herself was a visit to the theatre—when Franz had tickets given to him; when one of her favourite operas was performed; or on the anniversary of her husband's death—and, on such occasions, she pointed out to the younger children, the links that bound and would yet bind them to the great house.
"That was your father's seat," she reminded them every time. "The second row from the end. He came in at the door to the left. And that," pointing to the conductor's raised chair, "is where Franz will sit some day." For she dreamed of Franz in all the glory of KAPELLMEISTER; saw him swinging the little stick that dominated the theatre-audience, singers and players alike.
And the children, hanging over the high gallery, shuffling their restless feet, thus had their path as dearly traced for them, their destiny as surely sealed, as any fate-shackled heroes of antiquity.
* * * * *
Late one afternoon about this time, Franz might have been found together with his friends Krafft and Schilsky, at the latter's lodging in the TALSTRASSE. He was astride a chair, over the back of which he had folded his arms; and his chubby, rubicund face glistened with moisture.
In the middle of the room, at the corner of a bare deal table that was piled with loose music and manuscript, Schilsky sat improving and correcting the tails and bodies of hastily made, notes. He was still in his nightshirt, over which he had thrown coat and trousers; and, wide open at the neck, it exposed to the waist a skin of the dead whiteness peculiar to red-haired people. His face, on the other hand, was sallow and unfresh; and the reddish rims of the eyes, and the coarsely self-indulgent mouth, contrasted strikingly with the general youthfulness of his appearance. He had the true musician's head: round as a cannon-ball, with a vast, bumpy forehead, on which the soft fluffy hair began far back, and stood out like a nimbus. His eyes were either desperately dreamy or desperately sharp, never normally attentive or at rest; his blunted nose and chin were so short as to make the face look top-heavy. A carefully tended young moustache stood straight out along his cheeks. He had large, slender hands, and quick movements.
The air of the
"Ask Franz," she said to Maurice. "Franz knows. He will explain. All women can do is to reproduce what some one else has thought or felt."
As an immortal example of the limits set by sex, she invariably fell back on Clara Schumann, with whom she had more than once come into personal contact. In her youth, Frau Furst had had a clear soprano voice, and, to Maurice's interest, she told him how she had sometimes been sent for to the Schumann's house in the INSELSTRASSE, to sing Robert's songs for him.
"Clara accompanied me," she said, relating this, the great reminiscence of her life; "and he was there, too, although I never saw him face to face. He was too shy for that. But he was behind a screen, and sometimes he would call: 'I must alter that; it is too high;' or 'Quicker, quicker!' Sometimes even 'Bravo!'"
Her motherly ambitions for Franz knew no bounds. One of the few diversions she allowed herself was a visit to the theatre—when Franz had tickets given to him; when one of her favourite operas was performed; or on the anniversary of her husband's death—and, on such occasions, she pointed out to the younger children, the links that bound and would yet bind them to the great house.
"That was your father's seat," she reminded them every time. "The second row from the end. He came in at the door to the left. And that," pointing to the conductor's raised chair, "is where Franz will sit some day." For she dreamed of Franz in all the glory of KAPELLMEISTER; saw him swinging the little stick that dominated the theatre-audience, singers and players alike.
And the children, hanging over the high gallery, shuffling their restless feet, thus had their path as dearly traced for them, their destiny as surely sealed, as any fate-shackled heroes of antiquity.
* * * * *
Late one afternoon about this time, Franz might have been found together with his friends Krafft and Schilsky, at the latter's lodging in the TALSTRASSE. He was astride a chair, over the back of which he had folded his arms; and his chubby, rubicund face glistened with moisture.
In the middle of the room, at the corner of a bare deal table that was piled with loose music and manuscript, Schilsky sat improving and correcting the tails and bodies of hastily made, notes. He was still in his nightshirt, over which he had thrown coat and trousers; and, wide open at the neck, it exposed to the waist a skin of the dead whiteness peculiar to red-haired people. His face, on the other hand, was sallow and unfresh; and the reddish rims of the eyes, and the coarsely self-indulgent mouth, contrasted strikingly with the general youthfulness of his appearance. He had the true musician's head: round as a cannon-ball, with a vast, bumpy forehead, on which the soft fluffy hair began far back, and stood out like a nimbus. His eyes were either desperately dreamy or desperately sharp, never normally attentive or at rest; his blunted nose and chin were so short as to make the face look top-heavy. A carefully tended young moustache stood straight out along his cheeks. He had large, slender hands, and quick movements.
The air of the
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