Patuffa; the story of an artist

Chapter I

I T was In the month of May 1893, about half¬ past four in the afternoon, when a wild-look¬ ing little old man knocked violently at a house in the Earl’s Court Road. The door was opened by a maid, who immediately had a bad attack of nerves on beholding the eccentric apparition con¬ fronting her.

“ I wish to see Miss Patuffe,” he screamed ex¬ citedly.

“ Please, sir, you can’t see her. No one can see her to-night,” Jane gasped bravely, for she was really quaking in her shoes. “ I’ve got strict orders that she’s not to be disturbed for any one.”

“Fool! Idiot!” he shouted, stamping his foot. “ If you not let me pass, I murder you. So! ”

And he made a movement as if he were going to stab her to the heart.

Now Jane by no means wished to be stabbed to the heart. Her valorous intention, therefore, to hold the door against all intruders broke down precipitately. She opened it wide and admitted the stranger.

“ Fool, idiot woman,” he repeated in a high falsetto tone, which was most unnerving. u Go and tell her the so great Stefansky is here. There, there, do not look frightened, stupid, silly girl — perhaps I not murder you so quickly.”

At that moment a beautiful woman of middleage came into the hall.

“ Madame Mama! ” he cried, rushing forward to her.

“ Stefansky! ” she exclaimed, with both hands out. “ You here — on this night of all nights! ”

“ Of course,” he said, laughing joyously. “ That devil’s child, Patuffe, making her first ap¬ pearance at the Philharmonic — of course I had to be here. When I heard the news at Prague I left everything, Madame Mama — of course — there was nothing else to be done. And I tell you if that devil’s child not play the Mendelssohn Con¬ certo her best, her so great best to-night, I kill her at once. If she disgrace me, I not spare her life. Now you know.”

“ Yes, I quite understand,” said Mama smiling happily. “ Come into the living-room, dear Stefansky, whilst I go and warn her of her im¬ pending fate.”

“ You are still very beautiful, Madame Mama,” he said, putting his hand to his heart and bowing. “ The years have stood still for you — those peegs of years, hein! Very beautiful and what you English call stately — as always.”

“ I am glad you think so,” she said, laughing and blushing a little.

Mrs. Rendham left him pacing around like a caged coyote and hurried to Patuffa’s room. Patuffa was lying down, although the hairdresser had given strict and definite instructions that the head must by no means touch the pillow. Her concert dress lay all in a heap on the floor, al¬ though Mama had implored her with tragic en¬ treaty to be careful about it. She was munching some superfine chocolates which her old schoolfriend, Irene Tvrell, had brought to sustain her during the trying hours preceding her first Phil¬ harmonic concert.

“ Patuffa,” said Mama, so excited that she could scarcely breathe. “ Great news for you — Stefansky is here. You were right. You said he’d come if he got your letter in time.”

Patuffa sprang up from her bed, seized an old mackintosh hanging on the door, precipitated her¬ self into it, grabbed the chocolate box, nearly up¬ set Mama, and dashed downstairs like an ava¬ lanche.

“ Papa Stefansky,” she cried, “ I knew you’d come. I felt it in my bones.”

“ Aha, you were right to feel it in your bones* devil’s child,” he laughed, dancing around her and rubbing his hands in glee. “ The fool of a girl, she say I couldn’t see you. Another moment — and her so stupid life was gone. Aha, Mama is still very beautiful — and you, Patuffe — no, you are not beautiful — nothing could make you beautiful — but you are Patuffe. When I have said that, I have said all. And this is your con¬ cert dress? That is certainly very fashionable and lovely — it will keep the rain off the platform very well indeed! ”

She laughed and circled about him in the old way, as she and Irene used to do as children. Then with sudden impulse she seized a violin lying on a table in the corner and thrust it in his hands.

“ The old tune, Papa Stefansky,” she cried, “ the old dance — you remember — which you and I and Irene and Carissima used to dance to¬ gether when you were in a good temper, and weren’t too tired after your practising.”

“ Remember,” he said, “ of course I remember. But my poor little parrot, Carissima, she is dead long ago, and I am old — very old. And where is that wretch Irene? Still, we do a few little steps — yes — to put some heart into us for this so great and grand night.”

He took the violin and struck up the well-known

jig-

u Come now, Madame Mama,” he said, “ you must join in, and then the devil’s child — she play the cadenza to me.”

So round the table they danced, and into the hall, and back again into the sitting-room. Mama, half faint with laughing, ended in the arm¬ chair, happy, but breathless, and Patuffa gave her a hug and said:

u Isn’t this a splendid kind of nerve rest, dar¬ ling? I feel years younger, and ready to knock spots out of every one, and tear out every one’s hair.”

u That is the right spirit, the only right spirit,” said Stefansky. “ Now we all take a chocolate to recover ourselves — one for you, Madame Mama, one for me, the great Stefansky — not great now — no one care for him now, after his so long travels all over the world; but no matter, he is great all the same and always shall be great, even if the peegs of a public not want the great Stefansky.”

u Pigs! ” put in Patuffa truculently. “ I’ll do them in.”

“ And one chocolate for little Patuffe,” he con¬ tinued, “ in her so beautiful mackintosh concert robe. Ah, that is good for us all! And now to our business. Some of the Allegro and the Cadenza. If you play that not too badly, I not trouble for you. Stand on that mat.”

Mama had ever admired Patuffa’s nerve. Her mind went back years ago to the pine forests at Loschwitz, where she had first heard her little girl rehearse before the great Stefansky. She thought at the time that she herself would have died from fright if she had been called upon to face such an ordeal; and she thought the same now as she watched Patuffa take up her station on the mat and prepare for action.

Very winning and interesting looked Patuffa in her old mackintosh. Her dressed hair was in disarray, but it suited her better in a rebellious condition. She had ever been curiously indifferent to dress, yet managed somehow to present an at¬ tractive appearance to the world. She had the gift of carrying her clothes well, with the result that one was never conscious of what she did wear. Stefansky was right in saying that she was not beautiful; but there was on her face the same arresting intensity which had marked her out from others as a child. She had keen eyes, a delicate mouth with humor hovering around, and a dash¬ ing manner. There was something of the wild bird about her which proclaimed an untamed spirit.

She was slightly under middle height, slim, and yet compact of build. She looked as if she en¬ joyed excellent health, and the very slight depres¬ sion of her cheeks spoke of intensity rather than of delicacy. Her hair, always her best posses¬ sion, was charming. Even the art of that bar¬ barous personage, the court hairdresser, had been unable to deprive it of its natural beauty.

She stood at attention for a moment or two, stared at Stefansky as if she did not see him, stared into space as if searching for something beyond the ken of human eye, and then began.

He breathed deep breaths until she came to the Cadenza, in every Concerto always one of the severest tests of the musician’s faculties.

“And now,” he murmured, “ and now, if she fails — my God, if she fails — Madame Mama, I ask you — I ask you, if she fails. . .

But Patuffa did not heed him, and if she had heard, she would only have been spurred on to higher effort to win his praise, to vindicate her¬ self, to uphold her Art.

She laid hold of the Cadenza in masterly fashion, and, when she had ended it, played a few bars of the Tutti and then ceased.

There was a moment of silence before he looked up with moist eyes and saw her standing on the rug waiting for his words with the same patience as on that momentous occasion years ago when he had made the final decision that she should adopt the career of a professional violinist. A thou¬ sand things had happened to Patuffa since that wonderful day; but no change in circumstance, no development of character, no variation in tem¬ perament could have altered by one hair’s breadth her attitude towards Papa Stefansky. She stood waiting for his verdict with a tragic endurance which had no trace of appeal.

“ Little devil’s child,” he said at last, in a half whisper, “ if it was any one else but you I should be madly, madly jealous — but I must not, I can¬ not, I will not be jealous of the little devil’s child — you must not let me, Patuffe, you must not let me, Madame Mama. Never that, never! ”

Chapter II I

W HEN Stefansky, ten or twelve years pre¬ viously, had given his verdict in favor of a professional musical career for little Patuffa Rendham, she had played him the Andante from the Mendelssohn Concerto. He had been profoundly moved by her playing, and he had said:

“ Yes, little devil’s child, this shall be your career. But you must learn — my God, how you must learn! — and you must practise, practise, practise till your arm drop off and you have no arm left to practise with. This is the only way.’ r

She had practised and worked with amazing and unfaltering diligence, and with a passionate enthu¬ siasm. It is certain that to no other study would she have given all her young years. But she was heart and soul in music, and keenly ambitious and determined. For the sake of nothing else on earth would she have learnt to curb some of her natural waywardness and rebelliousness against all author¬ ity and discipline.

She was taken to Leipzig immediately after

Stefansky’s decision. Mama went with her and stayed some time with her in, a German family until their beloved friend Mr. Tyrell, known to those who loved him as “ Chummy,” and Irene, his daughter, Patuffa’s old school friend, took up their abode in Leipzig. Then Patuffa, who remained with her German family, went in and out of the Tyrells’ home as she chose. She could have lived there entirely if she had cared. But as she was happy and very well pleased with her Germans, he contented himself with watching over her, and furthering her education and interests. Mama re¬ mained at home and looked after her little boys, Mark and Eric. She made adventurous dashes over to Germany from time to time, enjoyed her¬ self enormously, and always returned satisfied that Patulfa was safe and in good hands.

In Leipzig Patuffa studied under Schradiech, and made progress which astounded him. She received her Diploma at the end of two years, and then went to Berlin and entered the Hochschule, and became a pupil eventually of Joachim. She captured here the Mendelssohn Prize, and made her debut at the Philharmonic Concert in Berlin when she played the Max Bruch Concerto in G Minor. She returned to Leipzig and had the honor of playing at one of the Gewandhaus Con¬ certs. Later she went to Moscow to study inter¬ pretation under Auer. She thus had every chance of first-class training that a violinist could have in those days. Chummy saw to that, and Mama’s family, in the shape of a rich old aunt, played up in unexpected fashion. Aunt Eleanor disliked fanatically the idea of having a professional mu¬ sician in the family. She thought that the proper place for a professional musician was in the con¬ cert hall, and never in a family which boasted all the finest traditions of the Navy.

“ But, Marion,” she said grimly to Mama, her favorite niece, u if we have to endure this appall¬ ing disgrace, we must see to it that the disgrace is not increased by incompetency. That wretched child must have her horrible chance.”

This way of putting things was not specially alluring. But when Mama was half-disposed to resent and refuse this definite practical help, her friend, Mme. Patuffa Tcharushin, a Russian revo¬ lutionary, before whom she always laid every plan, trouble or joy, said:

“ Na, na, Marionska — what does it matter about the words? People have to speak and say things in their own curious fashion. If some one write to me: Your Society of the Friends of Russia is an abominable damnation, but I send one thou¬ sand pound so that it become not so great an abominable damnation, I laugh and am pleased and understand. You must do the same, for the sake of Patuffa — and the old lady, since it is her innocent debauchery to do a kind deed very, very disagreeably.”

Aunt Eleanor died soon afterwards, but not be¬ fore she had done another kind deed more or less disagreeably. She settled a small income on

Mama, “ to prevent her,” so she said, “ from dis¬ gracing the family further by bringing up her two boys for any careers except that of the glorious Navy.”

Thus Patuffa did not have to owe everything to Chummy, though he “ stood by ” all through those years of apprenticeship and gave her pleasures and advantages which could never have come her way but for his kindness. He had al¬ ways had careers on the brain, for girls as well as boys. He was a pioneer, though he did not know it. He thought that careers strewn around were the only things that mattered seriously, and that all other foolish little details could be easily filled in, or left out, according to circumstances. Per¬ haps he was right. Anyway, he would have spent his last farthing in forwarding or giving careers, opening doors which would have remained closed, removing barriers, and tempering difficulties with opportunities for joyfulness and pleasure.

As a child, Patuffa had earned his gratitude for her fierce championship of his little daughter Irene, who had been flouted and bullied at school for her passionate love of learning; and from that time onwards she had shared with Irene ihe bene¬ fit of his intimate comradeship. Her quick in¬ telligence and impulsive temperament garnered many a treasure of his scattering which was to af, feet her art immeasurably. Through his direct, though unconscious influence, she became, as years went on, not merely a skilled manipulator of the violin, but a true artist with a belief in the high mission of Art, and with a mind which had stores from which to enrich her natural gift of musical interpretation.

Such then was Patuffa on the eve of her appear¬ ance at St. James’s Hall. She had already played very successfully in some of the principal towns in Germany, and had made favorable impression in Brussels, Paris, Vienna, and Moscow. She came from the Continent armed with excellent notices; and now it w T as to be seen what she could do with a London audience.

II

Stefansky had no real anxiety about her. He believed she would win laurels for herself that night. He had been amazed at her playing. Apart from her masterly technique, there was an arresting nobility in her interpretation, a sincerity in her style, a delicate finish in her phrasing, a re¬ strained tenderness in cantabile passages which one might not have expected of her, and a reckless abandon which would take people by storm.

“ She will go far,” he repeated to himself.

Yet he was nervy and agitated, and preferred to go to the concert alone instead of joining forces with her friends. He chose the gallery. He wished to hear the effect of Patuffa’s playing from a distance and observe the impression which her art and personality made on the audience as a whole.

So he sat amongst those “ pigs of the public ” as he had so often disrespectfully called them, and tried to believe that he was in very truth one of them, and not the great Stefansky.

Did he long to reveal himself to them and say, “ Do you know who I am? I will tell you, I am the great Stefansky? ”

Perhaps he did with one part of his mind. But with the other he wanted to be merely a plain member of the great public, betraying no sign either to bias or encourage his fellow-hearers when they were judging Patuffa. He was grimly resolved that no word, no gesture of his should contribute to their verdict. For the first time in his life Stefansky wanted to obliterate his own personality; and so quietly did he carry out his intention that no one noticed the wild-looking, weird little figure of a man who leaned back silent and impassive, with closed eyes, waiting with a curious patience which was entirely foreign to his nature. During the overture to Leonora and the “ Venusberg ” music from Tannhauser which pre¬ ceded Patuffa’s appearance, he might not have been alive.

But when her moment came, Stefansky opened his eyes and sat upright, rigid, grim. His heart beat and his face twitched. He folded his hands tightly together and thus made no attempt to add to the kind-hearted and encouraging applause which often greets a new virtuoso in England. He stared right across to the platform, and with his sharp little eyes saw her quite well enough for his purpose.

He heard his neighbor say, “ A striking face. Nothing of the pretty-pretty there.”

He nearly said, “ Of course not, fool, idiot.”

Some one behind him said, “What a beautiful dress she is wearing.”

Stefansky smiled, and thought, “ Aha, plainly, then, Patuffe is not wearing her so lovely mackin¬ tosh.”

The smile and the thought broke his rigidity, and his tense anxiety gave way to eager interest, curiosity, conjecture. What would she do with the Concerto? What would she do with the orchestra? Would it overwhelm her? Or would she work with it, weave herself in and out of it and waft herself above it to realms where it could never enter, where she alone would hold undis¬ puted sway? How would she take the vivace pas¬ sages? Could she find enough tenderness for the moving beauty of the Andante? Would she be nervous and hurry when she ought not to hurry, or over-accentuate pathos when she needed steady control of emotion? Scores of questions rose in his artist’s mind. One by one Patuffa answered them until his head was bowed and his left hand was pressing deep into his breast, and his little figure was rocking to and fro and tears were trickling unheeded down his shaggy face.

He knew that she had soared beyond his own power of flight, and that in style and phrasing, in all the nuances and in inspiration she had left him, her old master, far, far behind. He knew it, and a chill struck at his heart.

When they called her back, she came on the platform with a joyousness which had the charm of unselfconsciousness. She realized how splen¬ didly the orchestra had helped and supported her, and she turned to them, not with the automatic acknowledgment one often sees on these occasions, but with a true human impulsiveness of gratitude which reached each one of those jaded musicians, who were tired to extinction of glorious gen¬ iuses.

If her gesture could have been translated into words, those words would have been, “ I think you all have been perfect bricks and I do thank you. ,} But the unspoken message was borne to all, from leader of the violins to the drum. Even he, a cynic of cynics, was pleased, though he was careful to edit his gratification by saying, “ She won’t always be like that. She’ll soon get a swelled head like all of them. I know them.”

No, perhaps not. But on this evening of her first London triumph it is certain that she included in it every one in that hall, conductor, orchestra, and audience.

Her playing had been superb, and her success was assured. Several times she was recalled, and as she returned to the platform for the last time, flushed, excited, almost bewildered by the increas¬ ing applause, she whispered to Mama:

“ Mama, I don’t know how to go back again. I believe I’m going to cry.”

“ Never! ” said Mama with great resource, al¬ though she was herself nearly weeping. “You could only cry from rage, darling.”

“ Yes, that’s true,” said Patufla with a laugh, and she gathered herself together and received her final ovation with perfect quietness of dignity. No one would have guessed that she was, as she confessed afterwards, nearer to hysterics and smelling salts than she had ever been in her life.

In the artists’ room she received the congratula¬ tions of several distinguished personages in the world of music, people whose influence on her career would be far-reaching. Amongst them w r as the manager of the Philharmonic, George Plendered, a cautious man unaccustomed to com¬ mit himself to expressions of praise or apprecia¬ tion. No artist had succeeded in piercing the mask which concealed his enthusiasms, his emo¬ tions, his ideals. But on this one occasion he laid it aside of his own free will.

“Bravo, bravo!” he said. “You have done finely. I am delighted with you. A long time since I have enjoyed listening to any one so much.”

His heavy face lit up with the transforming radiance of a true enthusiasm. It was obvious that Patuffa’s art had impressed him most favorably, and that her personality also had won his interest. She struck him as being an altogether different type from that of the executants with whom he usually had dealings. She looked dif¬ ferent too, franker, simpler, and freer of spirit. He liked her curious little headlong and yet re¬ strained manner, and her easy, happy comradeship with her mother. He had heard Mama’s re¬ mark to her when she said she was going to cry, and he had laughed with them both and clapped her well when she braced herself with the stimu¬ lating remembrance that she only wept when she was in a rage and, thus re-assured, ran on to the platform for her last call. He thought suddenly of young, fresh, green spring leaves, and then laughed at himself for being a fool.

She was tremulous with excitement when she returned to the artists’ room; but dominating all her emotions was her anxiety about Stefansky’s verdict. She looked around hoping to see him. The moment he entered, all other people, whether conductors or managers or directors, critics or fellow-musicians, ceased to have any importance or indeed any existence on this globe. She leaped to greet him. Her face became drawn with the tension of her nervous expectancy. Mama watched her and loved her afresh for her un¬ swerving loyalty.

“Papa Stefansky, have I pleased you?” she asked. “ That’s what I want to know most of all.”

“ No, you have not pleased me, devil’s child,” he answered half deprecatingly.

“ Not pleased you? ” she repeated tragically.

“ Not pleased me altogether,” he went on, “ for the reason that you have made me ragingly angry with mad jealousy because you have played superb, Patuffe.”

Her face shone again.

“ At least that would be my state of mind if you was not my little Patuffe,” he continued. “ Superb — superb — superb. The tone — what a tone! — pure, firm and beautiful — and the tenderness — what a tenderness! — and the elan — ha, the elan! I kiss the hands of the devil’s child.”

Chivalrously, tenderly, the old man took them and put his lips to them.

“ Homage, my little Patuffe, homage,” he murmured.

Chapter III I

M R. TYRELL, who had recently been ill from bronchitis, did not go to the concert. So it was understood that every one should finish off the evening at his house and celebrate the occasion with a plentiful supply of the very best champagne, unfailingly appreciated by the many musicians who frequented his house. In the world of music he was known as a true Maecenas, and his house in the Melbury Road went by the name of “ Headquarters.” Artists of all degrees found there an ever-ready haven, either in bright days of prosperity or dark nights of adversity. He had passed his life in minister¬ ing to poets and painters and musicians, whom he regarded as the saviors of the world — the natural enemies of materialism. His home had ever been open to them; and his purse also.

But he had given them far more than mere money. He gave them respect, consideration, ap¬ preciation, and, above all, independence. His view was that it was his privilege to share what he had with them, and he would infinitely have pre¬ ferred their ingratitude to their homage and flattery. A patron of Arts and Letters — perish the thought! A friend, yes. That was entirely another matter. He reaped a certain amount of ingratitude, of course, at which he laughed. He was deceived, imposed on, innumerable times. But no untoward experience impaired his trust or his enthusiasm. He went his wayward path, in¬ corrigible and confident. His purse remained open, his heart unhardened and the door of his home unlocked. The only person on earth who could have checked him was Irene. But she had inherited from him the same tendencies and the same views. To her also musicians and poets and painters, and all who ministered to the needs of the mind and spirit, were the saviors of the world. She had seen to it that the traditions of Headquarters were carried on without a break, and she would have cheerfully given her last farthing for that end. But she gave even more. She sacrificed time and serenity and bore with amazing composure endless interruptions to her literary work which would have reduced most writers to angry pulp.

Chummy sat alone in the beautiful music room, enjoying, as ever, the sight of his pictures and books and organ and musical instruments of diverse kinds, and waited, but not anxiously, for the news of Patuffa. He believed, with old Stefansky, that all would be well.

The first person to bring the news was Keble

Fairbourne, Mama’s second cousin. Keble loved Patuffa, but she had persistently refused to con¬ sider him in any light save that of a comrade. Quite frankly she had said to him once:

“ Keble, I like you awfully as a cousin when you are not overbearing, and as Mama’s trustee who would not cheat us very much, and as a friend of the family who would always ‘ stand by.’ But I can’t go any further than that — really I can’t.”

“ I can wait,” he thought. “ I know how to wait.”

And to-night as he saw her on the platform, acknowledging the applause from all sides, he said to himself:

“ Patuffa won’t want me yet. But I know how to wait.”

Chummy had a lukewarm regard for Keble, whose brains he respected. But he was a bar¬ rister, and the legal temperament did not appeal to the man who was heart and soul given over to the arts. But being Madame Mama’s cousin, Patuffa’s cousin, Keble formed one of the group in a detached sort of way; and a sincere love of music was held to redeem him, as Madame Tcharushin said, from entire perdition:

His face lit up as he spoke of Patuffa’s playing:

“ It was magnificent, Chummy,” he said. “ I could scarcely breathe from excitement and won¬ der. And such a reception! ”

“ And how did she look? ” Chummy asked. “ How did she bear herself? ”

“ She looked like the Patuffa we know,” h v e answered smiling. “ Noble in her simple and direct bearing.”

Madame Tcharushin was the next to arrive. She was in high spirits over the success of Patuffa, who was her godchild.

“ Chummy,” she said, u I heard something about some champagne. And, let me tell you, the sooner we have it the better. For I am quite worn out with my emotions in being that child’s godmother. When I heard the last notes of the Andante — well, I cannot speak of it. And there she stood, firmly planted on the platform, like the little obstinate thing she is — and slightly sway¬ ing — like this, Chummy — it was so charming — and the applause would have done your heart good, as the champagne will do mine good.”