Youth and the Bright Medusa

d all day, until about four o'clock. Then the air grew much warmer and the sky cleared. Overhead it was a soft, rainy blue, and to the west a smoky gold. All around the horizon everythi

ge came for us, but Cressida sent the driver home to the Tenth Street house with the message that she would dine

go back to the laurel wood. They are so black, over the snow, that I could cry for joy. I don't know when I've

ushes, she kept going back to my poor young cousin, dead so long. "Things happen out of season. That's the worst of living. It was untimely for both of us, and yet," she sighed softly, "since he had to die, I'm not sorry. There was one beautifully happy year, though we were so poor, and it gave him-something! It would have been too hard if he'd had to miss eve

where the only access from the street was a narrow door, like a hole in the wall, between a tobacconist's and a flower shop. Cressida deluded herself into believing that her incognito was more successful in such non-descript places. S

as playing as we entered and selected our table. It was not a bad orchestra, and we were no sooner sea

. "What a good tone he has, quite unusual. What does

igh forehead had a kind of luminous pallour, and his hair was jet black and somewhat stringy. His manner was excited and dramatic. At the end of the number he acknowledged the

ee how short his sleeves are, and how he mops his face as if t

nd began vehemently to explain something to the pianist. The pianist stared at the music doubtfully-he was a plump old man with a rosy, bald crown, and his shiny linen and neat tie made him look as if he were on his way to a party.

nusual," I commented. "It looks

posers who were just beginning to be heard in New York. The young man made a brilliant dash of it, despite a lagging, scrambling acc

ive it to the director of the orchestra. Pausing at the door, while the porter dashed out to call a cab, we saw, in the wall mirror, a pair of wild black eyes following us quite despairingly from behind the palms at the other end of the room. Cressida observed as we went out that the young man was probably having a hard struggle. "He never got those clothes here, surely. The

med to be pleading for recognition.

xt was in some Slavic tongue with a French translation written underneath. Both the handwriting and the musi

ing. They are from that young violinist, you remember,-the one we noticed in the restaurant that eve

large square checkbook, six to a page. I supposed her immersed in sumptuary preoccupations when she suddenly looked over her

; very individual, and each had that spontaneity which makes a song seem inevitable and, once for all, "done." Th

inished Sarka for the third time. "It matters, because he really has somet

ntation. The English horn comes in so effectively there," she rose and indicated the passage, "just right with th

rsation. In a few moments they were separated by other early comers, and I led Bouchalka across the hall to the drawing-room. The guests, as they came in, glanced at him curiously. He wore a dark blue suit, soft and rather baggy, with a short coat, and a high double-breasted vest with two rows of buttons coming up to the loops of his black tie. This costume was even more fore

adame Garnet at once when we entered the re

s a ticket for the first part, and he comes out and gives to me his pass-back check, and I return for the last act. That is convenient

his skill with the violi

der-lip and frowned. "O

necessity; the flute, t

write all the time, an

ol

n acute angle, "but since, before, I eat at a bakery, with the slender brown roach on the pie, I guess I better let alone well enough." He paused to drink his tea; as he tasted one of the cakes his face lit with sudden animation and he gaze

rnet had an accomplished cook who

. "Austrichienne?

velvet and long black feathers, with a lace veil over her rich pallour and even a little

f a cake in his long fingers, gave her the connection. She laughed. "You like them? Of course, they are of yo

f frowning densely when he struggled to express himself, and suddenly elevating his coal-black eyebrows when his ideas cleared. His teeth were white, very irregular and interesting. The corrective methods of modern dentistry would have taken away half his good looks. His mouth would have been much less attractive for any re-arranging of those long, narrow, over-crowded teeth. Along with his frown and his

nice. But so much, always the same thing! Why?" He pierced me with

his shoulders. "They not want Bohemian songs. They not want my music. Even the street cars will not stop for me here, like for

Bouchalka was the sort of person who might actually starve or blow his brains out. Something very important had

le, watching Cressida with intent, impatient eyes, until, under the pretext of showing him a score, she drew him into the alcove at the back end of the long room, where she kept her musical library. The bookcases ran from the floor to the ceiling. There was a table and a reading-lamp, and a window seat looking upon the little walled garden. Two persons could be quite withdrawn there, and yet be a part of the general friendly scene. Cressida took a score from the shelf, and sat down with Bouchalka upon the window seat, the book open between them, though ne

only teacher the young man ever had. At twenty-one, when he was ready for the novitiate, Blasius felt that the call of life was too strong for him, and he ran away out into a world of which he knew nothing. He tramped southward to Vienna, begging and playing his fiddle from town to town. In Vienna he fell in with a gipsy band which was being recruited for a Paris restaurant and went with them to Paris. He played in cafés and in cheap theatres, did transcribing for a music publisher, tried to get pupils. For four

e. We insisted upon talking to the old pianist, who at last reluctantly admitted that the Bohemian had been dismissed. He had arrived very late one Sunday night three weeks ago, and had hot words with the proprietor. He had been late before, and had been warned. He was a very talented fellow, but wild and not to be depended upon. The old man gave us the address of a F

itan Opera orchestra at a Sunday night concert, she got him a position with the Symphony Orchestra, and persuaded the conservative Hempfstangle Quartette to p

bsent himself. When other guests arrived, the Bohemian and his patroness were always found at the critical point of discussion,-at the piano, by the fire, in the alcove at the end of the room-both of them interested and anim

er lived through. When I tried to question her about it, she replied absently and continued to shiver and crouch by the fire. Suddenly she rose, walked to the window,

ic of it just now. I've sent Dr. Brooks to him, but I can never tell anything from what a doctor says. I've got to see Bouchalka and his nurse, and what sort of

was a cordial, comfortable person who took Cressida in at a glance and seemed much impressed. Cressida's incognito was never successful. Her black gown was inconspicuous enough, but over it she wore a dark purple velvet carriage coat, lined with fur and furred at the cuffs and collar. The Frenchwoman's eye ran over it

ble gilt-framed mirror above the mantel, had all been respectable, substantial contributions to comfort in their time. The fireplace was now empty and grateless, and an ill-smelling gas stove

k man reached down and drew the cloak up over him, looking at it with weak, childish pleasure and stroking the velvet with his long fingers. "Couleur de gloire, couleur des reines!" I heard him murmur. He thrust the sleeve under his chin and closed his

d a call for "de l'eau chaude!" and the heavy trot of a serving woman on the stairs. On the floor below somebody was struggling with Schubert's Marche Militaire on a coarse-toned upright piano. Sometimes, when a door was opened, one

it. "It seems to please him," she murmured as we went down the stairs. "I can go home without a wrap. It's n

Bohemian when I entered Cressida's music-room unannounced, or by any radiance on her f

ade a "great artist," the common synonym for success. Her success, and the material evidences of it, quite blinded him. I could never draw from him anything adequate about Anna Straka, Cressida's Slavic rival, and this perhaps meant that he considered comparison disloyal. All the while that Cressida was singing reliably, and satisfying the management, Straka was singing uncertainly and making history. Her

to see herself as he saw her, to try to be like the notion of her that he carried somewhere in that pointed head of his. She was exalted quite beyond herself. Things that had been chilled under the grind came to life in her that winter, with the breath of Bouchalka's

rned to me smiling and said: "Do you know, this is the first spring I haven't dreaded. It's the first one I've ever really h

she said, "in love" suggested to Cressida only one plan of action; to have the Tenth Street house done over, to put more money into her brothers' business, send Horace to school, raise Poppas' percentage, and then with a clear conscience be married in the Church of the Ascension

her wonderfully. Bouchalka was less gaunt, and much less flighty and perverse. His frank pleasure in the comfort and order of his wife's establishment was ingratiating, even if it was a little amusing. Cressida had the sewing-room at the top of the house made

lar than ever, since she herself had so much more heart for them. Bouchalka's picturesque presence stimulated her graciousness and charm. One still found them conversing together as eagerly as in the days when they saw each other but seldom. Consequ

tand that he was writing an opera. He lived in the Tenth Street house like a tropical plant under glass. Nowhere in New York could he get such cookery as Ruzenka's. Ruzenka ("little Rose") had, like her mistress, bloomed afresh, now that she had a man and a compatriot to cook for. Her invention was tireless, and she took things with a high hand in the kitchen, confident of a perfect appreciation. She was a plump, fair, blue-eyed girl, giggly

re. "To be warm all the time, every day! It is like Aladdin. In Paris I have had weeks together when I was not warm once, when I did not have a bath once, like the cats in the street. The nights were a misery. Peo

her his talent might not subside with his despair. Some such apprehension must have troubled Cressida, though his gratitude would have been propitiatory to a more exacting task-master. She had always liked to make people happy, and he was the first one who had accepted her bounty without sourness. When he did not accompany her upon her spring tour, Cressida said it was because travelling interfered with composition; but I felt that she was deeply

ot bestir himself to accompany her, but he attended, very faithfully, to her correspondence and to her business at home. He had no ambitious schemes to increase her fortu

ation old to comedy. Cressida had been on the road for several weeks; singing in Minneapolis, Cleveland, St. Paul, then up into Canada and back to Boston. From Boston she was to go directly to C

y the afternoon train the next day. She telegraphed Chicago, but she did not telegraph Blasius, because she wished-the old fallacy of affection!-to "surprise" him. She could take it for granted that, at eleven on a cold winter night, he would be in the Tenth Street

ssible, she let herself in with her latch-key and went directly to his room. She did not find him th

ion of his conduct was that he had been drinking too much. His digression, he swore, was casual. It had never occurred before, and he could only appeal to his wife's magnanimity. But it was, on the whole, easier for Cressida to be firm than to be yielding, and she knew herself too well to attempt a readjustment. She had never made shabby compromises, and it was too late for her to b

t anything so venial and accidental-He shook his head slowly back and forth. He assured me that he was not at all himself on that fateful evening, and that when he recovered himself he would have sent Ruzenka away, making proper provision for her, of course. It was an ugly

d her, and all the fine things in her, better than any of you here. If that accident had not been, she would have lived happy with me for years. As for me, I have never believed in this happiness. I was not born under a good star. How did it come? By accident. It goes by accident. She tried to give good fortune to an unfortunate man,

ry stern, farouche; she is so very playful. I have never given my wife the slightest annoyance of this kind. Since I married her, I have not kissed the cheek of one lady! Then one night I am bored and drink too much champagne and I become a fool. What does it matter? Did my wife marry

had come to pay his respects to me, he said, to declare his undying gratitude to Madame Garnet, and to bid me farewell. He took up his hat and cane and kissed my hand. I have never seen him since. Cressida made a settlement upon him, but even Poppas, tor

of his room in the town he could see the pigeons flying forth from and back to the monastery bell-tower all day long. He sent her a