When she was in bed Elisabeth and Schopenhauer had to sit in the dark beside her until she slept.
"But, Fräulein, that will never do!" said Nancy, as they went down the little staircase together arm-in-arm. "You spoil her shockingly."
"Hush!" said Fräulein. And as they entered the cheerful drawing-room, where the violin lay on the table, and the bow on a chair, and a piece of rosin on the sofa, Fräulein stopped, and said impressively, "You do not know that that child is a Genius!"
In Fräulein's voice, as she said the word "genius," was awe and homage, service and genuflexion. Nancy sat down, and looked at the little piece of rosin stuck on its green cloth on the sofa. "A Genius!" The word and the awestruck tone brought a recollection to her mind. Years ago, when she had stepped into the dazzling light of her first success, and all the poets of Italy had come to congratulate and to flatter, One had not come. He was the great and sombre singer of revolt, the Pagan poet of modern Rome. He was the Genius, denounced, anathematized and exalted in turn by the hot-headed youth of Italy. He lived apart from the world, aloof from the clamour made around his name, shunning both laudators and detractors, impassive alike to invective and acclamation. To him, with his curt permission, Nancy herself had gone. A disciple and apostle of his, long-bearded and short of words, had come to conduct her to the Poet's house in Bologna. It was an old house on the broad, ancient ramparts of the city, where an armed sentinel marched, gun on shoulder, up and down. Nancy remembered that she had laughed, and said frivolously: "I suppose the Poet has the soldier on guard to prevent his ideas being stolen." The apostle had not smiled. Then she had entered the house alone, for the apostle was not invited.
The Spirit of Silence was on the cold stone staircase. The door had been opened by a pale-faced, stupid-looking servant, whose only mission in life seemed to be not to make a noise. Three hushed figures, the daughters of the Poet, had bidden her in a half-whisper to sit down. They all had a look about them as if they lived with something that devoured them day by day. And they looked as if they liked it. They lived to see that the Genius was not disturbed. Then the Genius had entered the room—a fierce and sombre-looking man of sixty, with a leonine head and impatient eyes. And she, seeing him, understood that one should be willing to tiptoe through life with subdued gesture and hushed voice, so that he were not disturbed. She understood that he had the right to devour.
He carried her little book in his hand, and spoke in brief, gruff tones. "Three women," he said, his flashing eyes looking her up and down as if he were angry with her, "have been poets: Sappho, Desbordes Valmore, Elizabeth Browning. And now—you. Go and work."
That was all. But it had been enough to send Nancy away dazed with happiness. The Devoured Ones had opened the door for her, and silently shown her out; and as she went tremblingly down the steps she had heard a heavy tread above her, and had stopped to look back. He had come out on to the landing, and was looking after her. She stood still, with a beating heart. And he had spoken again. Three words: "Aspetto e confido—I wait and trust."
She had replied, "Grazie," and then had gone running down the stairs, trembling and stumbling, knowing that his eyes were upon her.
"Aspetto e confido." He had waited and trusted in vain. She had never written another book. And now he would never read what she might write, for he was dead.
Nancy still stared at the little piece of rosin stuck on its dentelated green cloth—stared at it vaguely, unseeing. What? Anne-Marie was a Genius? The little tender, wild-eyed birdling was one of the Devourers? Yes, already in the Gartenhaus there was the atmosphere of hushed reverence, the attitude of sacrifice and waiting. Fräulein spoke in whispers; Elisabeth and the fox-terrier sat in the dark while the Genius went to sleep. Her violin possessed the table, her bow the armchair, her rosin the sofa. Fräulein had all the amazed stupefaction of one of the Devoured.
"The child is a Genius," she was repeating. "She will be like Wagner. Only greater."
Then she seemed to awake to the smaller realities of life. "What did the Firm say? When does your book appear? My poor dear, you must be tired! you must be hungry! But, hush! the child's room is just overhead, so, if you do not mind, I will give you your supper in the back-kitchen. Anne-Marie, when she is not eating, does not like the sound of plates."
XVIII
So Nancy did not go to Porto Venere after all. Nor to Spezia. For there was no great violin teacher in either of those blue and lovely places.
There were only balconied rooms, with wide views over the Mediterranean Sea, where Nancy could have written her Book, and seen visions and dreamed dreams; but surely, as Fräulein said, she could write her book in any nice quiet room, with a table in it, and pen and ink, while Anne-Marie must cultivate her gift and her calling. Anne-Marie must study her violin. So Nancy wrote, and explained this to the Ogre, and then she went with Anne-Marie and Fräulein to Prague, where the greatest of all violin-teachers lived, fitting left hands with wonderful technique, and right hands with marvellous pliancy; teaching slim fingers to dance and scamper and skip on four tense strings, and supple wrists to wield a skimming, or control a creeping, bow. And this greatest of teachers took little Anne-Marie to his heart. He also called her the Wunderkind, and set her eager feet, still in their white socks and button shoes, on the steep path that leads up the Hill of Glory.
Nancy unpacked her manuscripts in an apartment in one of the not very wide streets of old Prague; opposite her window was a row of brown and yellow stone houses; she had a table, and pen and ink, and there was nothing to disturb her. True, she could hear Anne-Marie playing the violin two rooms off, but that, of course, was a joy; besides, when all the doors were shut one could hardly hear anything, especially if one tied a scarf or something round one's head, and over one's ears.
So Nancy had no excuse for not working. She told herself so a hundred times a day, as she sat at the table with the scarf round her head, staring at the yellow house opposite. Through the open window came the sound of loud, jerky Czech voices. The strange new language, of which Nancy had learned a few dozen words, rang in her ears continuously: Kavarna … Vychod … Lekarna … the senseless words turned in her head like a many-coloured merry-go-round. Even at night in her dreams she seemed to be holding conversations in Czech. But that would pass, and she would be able to work; for now she had no anxieties and no preoccupations. Fräulein looked after Anne-Marie, body and soul, with unceasing and agitated care, deeming it as important that she should have her walk as that she should play the "Zigeunerweisen," that she should say her prayers as that she should eat her soup. And Nancy had no material preoccupations either. She had decided to accept gratefully, and without scruple, all that she needed for two years from her friend the Ogre. Long before then The Book would be out, and she could repay him. And what mattered repaying him? All he wanted was that she should be happy, and live her own life for two years. He would have to go back to Peru, and stay there for about that period of time. Let her meanwhile live her own life and fulfil her destiny—thus he wrote to her. And the Prager Bankverein had money for her when she needed it.
So Nancy sat before her manuscripts and lived her own life, and tried not to hear the violin, and not to mind interruptions. In her heart was a great longing—the longing to see the Ogre again before he left Europe, a great, aching desire for the blue chilliness of his eyes, for his stern manner, and his gruff voice, and for the shy greatness of his heart that her own heart loved and understood.