THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 43, 31 May 1910, Page 6

THE STORYTELLER.

THE ORGANIST. He was a very old gentleman, at whom the street boys pointed because of his long locks. He wore them long and curling', like the Bretons in pictures, although lie had come from some obscure place in Flanders and was living in a little city in the south of France. The people of the neighboring village, dwellers by the Rhone, folk of the land of garlic, sun and wind, asked, when they heard him speak: "Who is that strange man with the northern .accent V' "W hat! Don't you know liim? That is the organist of our cathedral." His clean-shaved face had the tone of old Delft faiences, in which a tinge of il>llie can always be seen beneath the white enamel. His face was woailiv outlined, like a Roman Bust. As to his eyes, they were .buried beneath such a forest of eyebrows that only two persons claimed to have seen them—that is, really to ha ve seen them. And yet these people differed in opinion as to their color. "Tliey are dark blue," said M. Foliolis, the .priest of the cathedral. To which the Mower of the great organ replied: ''l have seen 'them oftener than you have. I who blow the organ; they are brown, like the beetles on oak trees." Blue or brown, they had an anxious tenderness when they looked at Catherine, the only souvenir of the most painful episode of M. Bretwiller's life, 01 tta.e northern -school, whose -very gaiety wax ■pensive, and whose enthusiasm was melancholy -belonged, to the race of those great barbarians who came down from their forests to sunny Rome at the time of the invasions. They felt the sunbeams delightful upon their helmets, and their hearts were stirred 'by the glow, which awoke within them a new song. Their weapons trembled in their hands at the sight of the beautiful Roman women. and .they said to themselves that they would do well to pitch their tents in a land where the olive shades the twofold harvest -of grapes and wheat. After their manner, -and with great eagerness, they tasted the delights of that foreign land. But to understand is not to be understood. M. Bretwiller made -proof of that truth. His southern bride had not the least suspicion what a German musician might he; and she died of it. Catherine alone remained to prove that the organist had been married. She was puny and ill-favored, as the .product of two clashing civilisations. Her hair wias too curly, her forehead too low, her eyes, which could not decide between the north and the south, had the hue of dead embers.. Her mouth, however, was exquisite, modelled after antique types, full and severe, large and always moist, like the lips of shells which sing the eternal song. She sang divinely. Her father knew- no greater joy, perhaps he really had no other joy, than to hear the melodies which he composed come forth from that beloved voice and pass above the mimosas in the garden, borne by the air of Providence, wnich carries music more lightly than any other air, ■bv reason of habit, of the language, and of the fragrance of the flowers! He said to her, -simply: "See, Catherine, the greater part of men have not soul enoush for two. They have only enough for themselves. Those who have more soul than they need for themselves are the .poets, the philosophers, the musicians, and the composers. Above all the composers, ior they speak the language least of all' subject to restraint, and therefore the most universal. A note has no country. A melody is merely the key which open? the door of dreams in all dialects." He also said:

"I .know very well that I am not understood, here' in the south. All the members of the chapter have the Italian ear. The priest rebels against the fugue. The chapel-master, M. Catbise, may not even know the names of Bach. Fiunck and Wagner. The air is saturated with Rossini's cavatinas. sfv great organ, if I would permit it, would play serenades, all by itself. Its tremolo is diabolically easy. It is my honor to strive to implant the German 'method in this Latin country. I will make it triumphant. It shall reign Jiere some day, and you shall hear -Tristan and Yseult' in Avignon, and ihe 'Phantom Ship' sung in sight of the sea .by the herdsmen of Cnrague!" Sometimes they went to walk in the outskirts of the city, upon the bare hills where sparse groups of trees point toward the sky. M. Bretwiller tried not to hear the Rhone, which whistled an allegro of amazing lightness; he tried to hear neither the crickets, with their Neapolitan songs,, nor the tamarisk shrubs, those unwearying niurmurers of lullabies; but when he came upon a pine tree, he seated himself at its foot and took a lesson. "Master of masters/' he said, "singer of the north and of the south, self-sufficing, and evolving the same meditativ» theme, alike beneath the sun and the fog." But, far more often, M. Bretwiller did not go out. In the streets his tall, bent figure was .seldom seen, unless it were on saints' days, half an hour before service and half an hour afterward. He walked along, already improvising, .possessed by the idea which developed itself exuberantly in these moments of exaltarfon. He saw no one, bowed to no one, and did not know that he had reached his destination until suddenly the shadow clo.se to the Roman walls of the cathedral made him raise his 'head. Then, going in by a door of which he alone possessed the 'key, he mounted the organ gallery, seated himself, threw a terrible glance at the blower, and played a fewchords, with his .hand and his foot, to •test himself. Then, the time having come, he abandoned himself to the charm of his composition, a charm which, alas, was confined to himself. He was no longer bowed down, but erect, solemn, happy. The only ,person who disturbed him in the joyful hours >was Catbise, the chapelmaster, who responded to him with the little choir j organ; Catbise, who played the chants, a pure southerner, and of the blood kind which never knows self-

distrust. This Catbise, who Ims not composed even a waltz, delighted liis audience 'with preludes, sorrowful airs witli flowcrv variations, tearful strains mingled with Tyrolean warbling*, the art, in fact, of the little Italians, who smilingly plays the violin in the streets. Bretwiller execrated ilini all the more so because once or twice a year a certain ■worthy canon, who had no thought of ill-will, would come to him and say: "How you master your organ, M. Bretwilier! What a pitv that you are not always clear! See M. Catbise, a young •man with a great future. There is a man v. -nun one can easily understand, am! whom one can follow without fatigue!" Catherine consoled her father for the injustice of men. She was ;the true case of this sacrificed lige. If you could have penetrated it'll© secret of that ok? artist's soul, you would (have seen what no one knew, not even Catherine herself, that if he remained in that southern land, so rebellious to .his art, it was not in order to secure the triumph of his favorite comoosers or of his own but to save* Catherine ! w,ho had been sickly from childhood. A .physician in whom M. Bretwiller liad confidence had said: "If she leaves the south (before she is twenty-live years old she will not live." He waited, watdhing with a growing hope f hc- restoration of Ms child who had neither strength nor beauty. From year to year he observed new favorable symptoms. She had a fair color in 'her cheeks. She walked more firmly. Her voice assumed without effort the grave fullness which indicates a robust life. W< u'.d she'live? And could they boMi leave the valley of the. Rhone, and make their way to the north, she, having passed her early youth, he, before his final old age? When ■she sang lie said alouu: "What a joy to be so understood! What a queen of high ■art you are!'' At the same time he thought: ''We will leave them all. these lovers of farandoles! I will take you far away. You were almost sentenced to death, and now life smiles upon you."

'Twenty-three, twenty-four, twentyfive! Slie hail reached her tweniy-nlth year. M. Bret wilier only sought an occasion. and the occasion came to him without his suspecting it. The rumor spread through the city that M.Catbise had composed a mass in sol minor for the approaching solemnity of Easter. At first the organist did not believe it. "Sol minor? Sol minor? Persons of his sort only write in major, sir! As far as he is concerned, how should he write anything at all, even in a common hilarious tones? He tos not an idea. Catbise cannot have composed a mass—my own in re minor is not finished, although I have been working on it for fifteen years." It was true, however. When he received the score from tlhe priest's hand a rase took possession of the organist; a rage in which there entered musical passion and a great deal of jealousy. The priest said: "You will accompany M. Catbise's mass on the little organ, will you not, dear M. Bret wilier? He will conduct." "No, sir. I only accompany that which exists. Catbise does not exist." His resignation followed on the same day. The organist wrote it off-hand, without hesitation, without emotion. He was free. He could return to the north and realise his dream of twenty-five years. Only twenty-five years is a great age for a dream. The first- use which M. Bretwiller made of his freedom was to go back to 'the cathedral and to enter the organ-loft. He tried the taut-hois, which he found of a most superior quality; the celestial voice, which lie often used; the trumpet, which did not displease him. With a sigh lie said: "Fine instrument, into what hands you are about to fall!" And with the point of his knife he inscribed upon the largest .pipes these words, which I have read: "This organ will 'think no more." It gave him"a strange sensation to turn the key in the old lock of the organ-loft. As 'he went down the street from the cathedral he went, into the shop of a man who sold hot cakes. He used to •buy one every Sunday, as he went home from the great organ. "Adieu, M. Besseguet." "Don't you mean au revoir?" "No, adieu!" He did not explain himself, for he was affected.- He felt the curiosity of a foreigner in this city which he had no.t •wanted to see during all his life tliere. He observed the houses, measured with his eye the trees on the avenues, recognised the passers-by, and saluted them, with as low gesture which followed them. When he came in front of his garden hedsfe, he saw a pomegranate .blossom which had just opened. "I shall regret that,"'lie said. He went along between the borders of violets which were 30 fragrant every morning when he settled himself a.t his 'piano, and he went ■past the grape-arbors which he visited so gladly in the autumn, until he came to his daughter, feeling less proud than he had expected to feel. She had already approved of everything. She haa more things to regret than he had; but, after all, since he was so eager to leave the country M. Bretwiller was astonished to find that he was held by so many ties to a land which 'he detested. His nature was insistent. He loved to go to the bottom of question. He said: "What matters it to us. here or there ? We shall cam- with us our happiness, my little Catherine, our dear intimacy' which is everything to us." "Undoubtedly." "We shall live in just the same way." "fiood heavens, yes!" "How vou say that! Are you not ■happy, Catherine?" He thought: "As < to me, there are reasons why I s'houM he sorry. But she? For twenty-five years I have lived for her alone." Catherine let .herself be urged to answer. She hesitated, and ended by saving, without understanding all the cruelty" of her words: ""I have been loved (by nobody but you!" And M. Bretwiller went to the north, having learned two things in a short time: that it is dangerous to try to realise an old dream; but that it is still more 30, that it is an absolute imprudence, to wish to know the inmost essence'of our happiness.