There & Back eBook

For the rest of the concert, the music had sunk to a soft delight, and took the second place; the delight of seeing dulled his delight in hearing.  All the rainbow claspings and weavings of strange accords, all the wing-wafts of out-dreaming melody, seemed to him to come flickering and floating from one creative centre—­the face, and specially the eyes of Barbara; yet the music and Barbara seemed one.  The form of it that entered by his eyes met that which entered by his ears, and they were one ere he noted a difference.  Barbara was the music, and the music was Barbara.  He saw her with his ears; he heard her with his eyes.  But as the last sonata sank to its death, suddenly the face and the tones parted company, and he knew that his eyes and her face must part next, and the same moment her face was already far away.  She had left him; she was looking for her fan, and preparing to go.

He was not far from the door.  He hurried softly out, plunged into the open air as into a great cool river, went round the house, and took his stand at one of the doors, where he waited like one watching the flow of a river of gravel for the shine of a diamond.  But the flow sank to threads and drops, and the diamond never shone.

He walked home, nevertheless, as if he had seen an end of sorrow:  how much had been given him that night, for ever to have and to hold!  Such an hour went far to redeem the hateful thing, life!  A much worse world would be more than endurable, with its black and gray once or twice in a century crossed by such a band of gold!  Who would not plunge through ages of vapour for one flash of such a star!  Who would not dig to the centre for one glimpse of a gem of such exhaustless fire!  “But, alas, how many for whom no golden threads are woven into the web of life!” he said to himself as he thought of Alice and Arthur—­but straightway answered himself, saying, “Who dares assert it?  The secret of a man’s life is with himself; who can speak for another!” He had himself been miserable, and was now content—­oh, how much more than content—­that he had been miserable!  He was even strong to be miserable again!  What might not fall to the lot of the rest, every one of them, ere God, if there were a God, had done with them!  Who invented music?  Some one must have made the delight of it possible!  With his own share in its joy he had had nothing to do!  Was Chance its grand inventor, its great ingenieur?  Why or how should Chance love loveliness that was not, and make it be, that others might love it?  Could it be a deaf God, or a being that did not care and would not listen, that invented music?  No; music did not come of itself, neither could the source of it be devoid of music!

CHAPTER XLV.

THE CARRIAGE.

Before the next Monday, he had learned the outlets of the hall, and the relations of its divisions to its doors.  But he fared no better, for whether again he mistook the door or not, he did not see Barbara come out.  He had been with her, however, through all the concert; there was reason to hope she would be often present, and every time there would be a chance of his getting near her!  The following Monday, nevertheless, she was not in the house:  had she been, he said to himself, his eyes would of themselves have found her.