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Page 35
He paused for a minute; then: 'You see,' he said, 'we made the
mistake, when we were young, of believing, against wise authority,
that it _was_ in mortals to command success, that he could command it
who deserved it. We believed that the race would be to the swift, the
battle to the strong; that a man was responsible for his own destiny,
that he'd get what he merited. We believed that honest labour couldn't
go unrewarded. An immense mistake. Success is an affair of
temperament, like faith, like love, like the colour of your hair. Oh,
the old story about industry, resolution, and no vices! I was
industrious, I was resolute, and I had no more than the common share
of vices. But I had the unsuccessful temperament; and here I am. If my
motives had been ignoble--but I can't see that they were. I wanted to
earn a decent living; I wanted to justify my existence by doing
something worthy of the world's acceptance. But the stars in their
courses fought against me. I have tried hard to convince myself that
the music I wrote was rubbish. It had its faults, no doubt. It wasn't
great, it wasn't epoch-making. But, as music goes nowadays, it was
jolly good. It was a jolly sight better than the average.'
'Oh, that is certain, that is certain,' I exclaimed, as he paused
again.
'Well, anyhow, it didn't sell, and at last I couldn't even get it
published. So then I tried to find other work. I tried everything. I
tried to teach--harmony and the theory of composition. I couldn't get
pupils. So few people want to study that sort of thing, and there were
good masters already in the place. If I had known how to play, indeed!
But I was never better than a fifth-rate executant; I had never gone
in for that; my "lay" was composition. I couldn't give piano lessons,
I couldn't play in public--unless in a _gargotte_ like the hole we
have just left. Oh, I tried everything. I tried to get musical
criticism to do for the newspapers. Surely I was competent to do
musical criticism. But no--they wouldn't employ me. I had ill luck,
ill luck, ill luck--nothing but ill luck, defeat, disappointment. Was
it the will of Heaven? I wondered what unforgiveable sin I had
committed to be punished so. Do you know what it is like to work and
pray and wait, day after day, and watch day after day come and go and
bring you nothing? Oh, I tasted the whole heart-sickness of hope
deferred; Giant Despair was my constant bed-fellow.'
'But--with your connections--' I began.
'Oh, my connections!' he cried. 'There was the rub. London is the
cruellest town in Europe. For sheer cold blood and heartlessness give
Londoners the palm. I had connections enough for the first month or
so, and then people found out things that didn't concern them. They
found out some things that were true, and they imagined other things
that were false. They wouldn't have my wife; they told the most
infamous lies about her; and I wouldn't have _them_. Could I be civil
to people who insulted and slandered _her_? I had no connections in
London, except with the underworld. I got down to copying parts for
theatrical orchestras; and working twelve hours a day, earned about
thirty shillings a week.'
'You might have come back to Paris.'
'And fared worse. I couldn't have earned thirty pence in Paris. Mind
you, the only trade I had learned was that of a musical composer; and
I couldn't compose music that people would buy. I should have starved
as a copyist in Paris, where copyists are more numerous and worse
paid. Teach there? But to one competent master of harmony in London
there are ten in Paris. No; it was a hopeless case.'
'It is incomprehensible--incomprehensible,' said I.
'But wait--wait till you've heard the end. One would think I had had
enough--not so? One would think my cup of bitterness was full. No
fear! There was a stronger cup still a-brewing for me. When Fortune
takes a grudge against a man, she never lets up. She exacts the
uttermost farthing. I was pretty badly off, but I had one treasure
left--I had Godelinette. I used to think that she was my compensation.
I would say to myself, "A man can't have all blessings. How can you
expect others, when you've got her?" And I would accuse myself of
ingratitude for complaining of my unsuccess. Then she fell ill. My
God, how I watched over, prayed over her! It seemed impossible--I
could not believe--that she would be taken from me. Yet, Harry, do you
know what that poor child was thinking? Do you know what her dying
thoughts were--her wishes? Throughout her long painful illness she was
thinking that she was an obstacle in my way, a weight upon me; that if
it weren't for her, I should get on, have friends, a position; that it
would be a good thing for me if she should die; and she was hoping in
her poor little heart that she wouldn't get well! Oh, I know it, I
knew it--and you see me here alive. She let herself die for my
sake--as if I could care for anything without her. That's what brought
us here, to France, to Bordeaux--her illness. The doctors said she
must pass the spring out of England, away from the March winds, in the
South; and I begged and borrowed money enough to take her. And we were
on our way to Arcachon; but when we reached Bordeaux she was too ill
to continue the journey, and--she died here.'
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