Otto had stopped in his pacing back and forth and was watching him with an expression both of incredulity and longsuffering familiarity. "Bah!" he said. "What the devil do you come to me for? And burst into tears? And then tell me thanks very much for your suggestion but I shall continue to attempt the impossible? The arrogance, the unreasonableness – no, I can endure all that – but the stupidity, the absolute stupidity of artists, I cannot stand it any longer!"
Abashed, submissive, Gaye sat there in his shabby suit; everything about him was shabby, pinched, overstrained and underfed, ground down and worn thin; and Otto knew he could shout at him for two hours and promise him introductions, publication, performances. He would never be heard. Gaye would only say in his inaudible stammer, "I have to write the Mass first. . . ."
"You read German, eh?"
"Yes."
"All right. After the mass is finished, then write songs. In German. Or French if you like it, people are used to it, they won't listen in Vienna or Paris to a lot of songs in a language like ours, or Rumanian or Danish or what have you, it's a mere curiosity, like folksongs. We want your music heard, so write for the big countries, and remember most singers are idiots. All right?"
"You're very kind, Mr. Egorin," Gaye said, not submissively this time but with a curious formal dignity. He knew that Otto was yielding to his stubborn unreason as he would to that of a great, a famous artist, humoring him, getting round him, when he could as well have stepped on him like a beetle. He knew, in fact, that Otto was defeated.
"If you'll put the elephants aside for a very little while, for a few evenings, in order to write something which might conceivably be published, be heard, you see," Otto was saying, still ironic, exasperated, and deferent, when the door swung open and his wife made an entrance. She swept Gaye's little son in with her, the Swiss maid followed. The room all at once was full of men, women, children, voices, perfume, jewelry. "Otto, look what I found with Anne Elise! Did you ever see such an enchanter? Look at the eyes, the great, dark, solemn eyes! 'His name is Vasli, he likes chocolates.' Such an enchanter, such a little man, did you ever see such a child? How do you do, so glad. You're Vasli's – ? yes, of course, you are, the eyes! Oh, Christ, what a ghastly hole this town is, I want to leave on the first train after the concert, Otto, I don't care if it's three in the morning. I can feel myself beginning to look like all those huge empty stone houses across the river, all eyes, staring, staring, staring, like skulls! Why don't they tear them down if nobody lives in them? Never again, never again, to hell with the provinces and encouraging national art, I can't sing in every graveyard in the country, Otto. Anne Elise, draw my bath, please. I'm simply filthy, I must be grey as buckwheat. Are you the Management from Sorg?"
"I've already talked to them on the telephone," said Otto, knowing that Gaye would be unable to answer. "Mr Gaye is a composer, he writes Masses." He did not say "songs," for that would catch Egorina's attention. He was paying Gaye back a little, giving him an object lesson in practicality. Egorina, uninterested in Masses, talked on. An unceasing flood of words poured from her for twenty-four hours before each concert, and stopped only when she walked out on the stage, tall, magnificent, smiling, to sing. After she had sung she would be quiet, ruminating. She was, Otto said, the most beautiful musical instrument in the world. He had married her because it was the only way to keep her from going on the light-opera stage; stubborn, stupid, and sensitive in proportion to her talent, she dreaded failure and wanted to succeed the sure way. So Otto had married her and made her succeed the hard way, as a lieder-singer. In October she would take her first opera role, Strauss's Arabella. That probably meant she would talk for six straight weeks beforehand. Otto could bear it. She was very beautiful, and generally good-humored, and anyway one need not listen. She did not care whether one listened so long as one was there, an audience.
She talked on, the sound of rushing water came from the bathroom, the telephone rang, she began to talk on the telephone. Gaye had not said a word. The child stood beside him, grave as ever; Egorina had forgotten all about Vasli after making her entrance with him, and had been swearing like a sergeant.
Gaye stood up. Relieved, Otto took him to the door, gave him two passes to Egorina's recital tomorrow night, shrugged off his thanks – "We're not sold out, you know! This is a dead town for music." Behind them Egorina's voice flooded magnificently on, her laugh broke out like the jet of a great fountain. "Jesus! what do I care what that little Jew says?" she sang out, and again the great, golden laugh. "Gaye," said Otto Egorin, "you know, there's one other thing. This is not a good world for music, either. This world now, in 1938. You're not the only man who wonders, what's the good? who needs music, who wants it? Who indeed, when Europe is crawling with armies like a corpse with maggots, when Russia uses symphonies to glorify the latest boiler-factory in the Urals, when the function of music has been all summed up in Putzi playing the piano to soothe the Leader's nerves. By the time your Mass is finished, you know, all the churches may be blown into little pieces, and your men's chorus will be wearing uniforms and also being blown into little pieces. If not, send it to me, I shall be interested. But I'm not hopeful. I am on the losing side, with you. So is she, my Egorina there, believe it or not. She will never believe it. … But music is no good, no use, Gaye. Not any more. Write your songs, write your Mass, it does no harm. I shall go on arranging concerts, it does no harm. But it won't save us. . . ."
Ladislas Gaye and his son walked from the hotel to the old bridge over the Ras; their home was in the Old City, the bleak jumbled quarter on the north side of the river. What Foranoy had in the way of wealth and modernity lay south of the river in the New City. It was a warm bright day, late spring; they stopped on the bridge to look at the arches reflecting in the dark water, each with its reflection forming a perfect circle. A barge came through loaded with wadded crates and Vasli, held up by his father so he could see over the stone railing, spat down on one of the crates. "Shame on you," Ladislas Gaye said without heat. He was happy. He did not care if he had blubbered like a baby in front of Otto Egorin, the great impresario. He did not care if he was tired and this was one of his wife's bad days and he was already late. He did not care about anything at all, except the child's small, firm hand in his, and the way the wind out here on the bridge, between city and city, carried away all sound and left one bathed in warm, silent sunlight, and the fact that Otto Egorin knew what he was: a musician. So far, in this one recognition by one man, he was strong and he was free. It went no further than that, his strength and freedom, but it was enough. The trumpet-tune of his Sanctus sang in his head.
"Papa, why did the big lady have things in her ears and ask if I liked chocolate? Do people not like chocolate?"