The Black Cross | Page 4

drew the bow over the quivering strings in the first solo
passage of the Vieuxtemps.
The tones rose and fell above the volume of the orchestra. The depth of
them, the sweetness seemed to penetrate to the uttermost corner. A
curious tenseness came over the listening audience. Not a soul stirred.
The Grand-Duke sat motionless with his head in his hands. The strings
vibrated to each individual heart-beat; the bow sighed over them, and
with the last note a murmur and then a roar went up.
Velasco stirred slightly, dropped his bow and bowed, without raising
his eyes. Then, hardly waiting for the applause to subside, the second
movement began, slow and passionate. The notes became fuller and
more sensuous. The hush deepened. The silence grew more intense; a
strain of listening, a fixed eagerness of watching.
Suddenly, in the midst, the Violinist raised his head from his
instrument, drawing the bow with a slow, downward, caressing
pressure over the E string. His eyes, half veiled and dreamy, looked
straight across the House into a loggia next to the Imperial Box,
impelled thereto by some force outside of his own consciousness.
A girl with an exquisite flower-like face was leaning over the crimson
rail, her gaze on his, fixed and intent. The gold of her hair glistened in
the light. Her lips were parted, the bosom of her dress rising and falling;
her small hands clasped.
Velasco gazed steadily for a moment; then he dropped his head again,
and swaying slightly played on.
The bow seemed fairly to rend the strings. He toyed with the
difficulties; his scales, his arpeggios were as a flash, a ripple of notes
tumbling over one another, each one a pearl. His lion's mane caressed
the violin; his cheek pressed it like a living thing, closely, passionately,
and it answered like a creature possessed.

As the strings vibrated to the last dying note, the beauty of it, the
virtuosity, the abandon, drove the House mad with enthusiasm. They
rose to him; they shouted his name eagerly, impetuously.
"Velasco! Viva!--Velasco! Bravo--bravissimo!"
Over the packed Theatre the handkerchiefs waved like a myriad of
white banners. The bravos redoubled. The women tore the flowers from
their girdles to fling on the stage; they lay piled on the white boards
about him, broken and sweet, their perfume filling the air.
The young Violinist bowed, his hand on his heart, smiled and bowed
again. He went out by the little door, and then came back and bowed
and bowed.
The House rose as one man.
"Velasco! Velas--co!" It was deafening.
Suddenly out of the uproar, out of the crowd and the din, from someone,
from somewhere, a bunch of violets fell at his feet. He raised them to
his lips with a smile. "Viva--Velas--co--o!" The clapping redoubled.
About the stems of the violets, twined and intertwined again, was a
twist of paper. His eyes fell for an instant on the blotted words and then
the stage door closed behind him. They were few and almost illegible.
"Will you help me--life or death--tonight? Kaya." The rest was a blot.
He scanned them again more closely and shook the hair from his eyes.
"Velasco! Velasco--Viva!"
When the young Violinist came forward for the third time, his dark
eyes flashed to the eyes of the girl like steel to a magnet. They seemed
to plead, to wrestle with him.
"Will you help me--life or death--tonight? Kaya."
Did her lips move; was it a signal? Her hands seemed to beckon him.

He bowed low to the loggia, like one in a trance, once, twice, their eyes
still together. And then, suddenly, he wrenched himself away
remembering the House, the shouting, cheering, waving House.
"Ah--h Velasco--o!"
Lifting his violin he began to play again slowly, dreamily, hardly
knowing how or why, a weird, chanting Polish improvisation like a
love song, a song without words. His eyes opened and closed again.
Always that gaze, pleading, wrestling, that flower-like face, those
clasped hands beckoning.
Who was she--Kaya? His heart beat and throbbed; he was suffocating.
With a last wild and passionate note Velasco tore the bow from the
strings; it was as though the earth had opened and swallowed him up;
he was gone.

[1] My God.
[2] A thousand devils!
CHAPTER II
In one of the poorer quarters of St. Petersburg there is a street on a back
canal, and over the street an arch. To the right of the arch is a flight of
steps, ancient and worm-eaten, difficult of climbing by day by reason
of a hole here, a worn place there, and the perilous tilting of the boards;
at night well nigh impassable without a lantern. The steps wind and end
in a tenement, once a palace, spanning the water.
It was midnight.
A