A Face Illumined | Page 6

baton--that magic wand whose graceful yet
mysterious motion evokes with equal ease, seemingly, the thunder of a

storm, the song of a bird, the horrid din of an inferno, or a harmony so
pure and lofty as to suggest heavenly strains. One of Beethoven's
exquisite symphonies was to be rendered, and Van Berg threw away his
half-burned cigar, settled himself in his chair and glanced around with a
congratulatory air, as if to say, "Now we are to have one of those
pleasures which fills the cup of life to overflowing."
Oh, that casual glance! It was one of those things that we might justly
call "little." Could anything have been more trivial, slight, and
apparently inconsequential than this half involuntary act? Indeed it was
too aimless even to have been prompted by a conscious effort of the
will. But this book is one of the least results of that momentary sweep
of the eye. Another was, that Van Berg did not enjoy the symphony at
all, and was soon in a very bad humor. That casual glance had revealed,
not far away, a face that with his passion for beauty, at once riveted his
attention. His slight start and faint exclamation, caused Ik Stanton to
look around also, and then, with a mischievous and observant twinkle
in his eyes, the bon vivant resumed his cigar, which no symphony
could exorcise from his mouth.
At a table just within the main audience room, there sat a young lady
and gentleman. Even Van berg, who made it his business to discover
and study beauty, was soon compelled to admit to himself that he had
never seen finer features than were possessed by this fair young
stranger. Her nose was straight, her upper lip was short, and might have
been modelled from Cupid's bow; her chin did not form a perfect oval
after the cold and severe Grecian type, but was slightly firm and
prominent, receding with decided yet exquisite curves to the full white
throat. Her cheeks had a transparent fairness, in which the color came
and went instead of lingering in any conventional place and manner;
her hair was too light to be called brown and too dark to be golden, but
was shaded like that on which the sunlight falls in one of Bougereau's
pictures of "Mother and Child;" and it rippled away from a broad low
brow in natural waves, half hiding the small, shell-like ears.
Van Berg at first though her eyes to be her finest feature, but he soon
regarded them as the worst, and for the same reason, as he speedily

discovered, that the face, each feature of which seemed perfect, became,
after brief study, so unsatisfactory as to cause positive annoyance. To a
passing glance they were large, dark, beautiful eyes, but they lost
steadily under thoughtful scrutiny. A flashing gem may seem real at
first, but as its meretricious rays are analyzed, they lose their charm
because revealing a stone not only worthless worse than worthless,
since it mocks us with a false resemblance, thus raising hopes only to
disappoint them. The other features remained beautiful and satisfactory
to Van Berg's furtive observation because further removed from the
informing mind, and therefore more justly capable of admiration upon
their own merits; but the eyes are too near akin to the animating spirit
not to suffer from the relationship, should the spirit be essentially
defective.
That the beautiful face was but a transparent mask of a deformed,
dwarfed, contemptible little soul was speedily made evident. The cream
and a silly flirtation with her empty-headed attendant--a pallid youth
who parted his hair like a girl and had not other parts worth
naming--absorbed her wholly, and the exquisite symphony was no
more to her than an annoying din which made it difficult to hear her
companion's compliments that were as sweet, heavy, and stale as
Mailard's chocolates, left a year on the shelves. Their mutual giggle and
chatter at last became so obtrusive that an old and music-loving
German turned his broad face towards them, and hissed out the word
"Hist!" with such vindictive force as to suggest that all the winds had
suddenly broken lose from the cave of Aeolus.
Ik Stanton, who had been watching Van Berg's perturbed, lowering
face, and the weak comedy at the adjacent table, was obviously much
amused, although he took pains to appear blind to it all and kept his
back, as far as possible, towards the young lady.
The German's "hist" had been so fierce as to be almost like a rap from a
policeman's club, and there was an enforced and temporary suspension
of the inane chatter. The attendant youth tried to assume the incensed
and threatening look with which an ancient gallant would have laid his
hand on