The eternal moment, and other stories
Since Beethoven is deaf, the clerk could reply, "With most intimate
insight. There was a time when Ellen was further from your spirit than
the rest, but that has not been the case since Dolores and Violet
arrived."
"New comrades have inspired her. I understand."
The clerk was silent.
"I approve," continued Beethoven, "and in token of my approval I decree
that Miss Haddon and her orchestra and all in their house shall this
very evening hear a perfect performance of my A minor quartette."
While the decree was being entered, and while the staff was wondering
how it would be executed, a scene of even greater splendour was taking
place in another part of the empyrean. There Napoleon sat, surrounded
by his clerks, who were so numerous that the thrones of the outermost
looked no larger than cirro-cumuli clouds. They were busy entering all
the references made on earth to their employer, a task for which he
himself had organized them. Every few moments he asked, "And what is
our latest phase?"
The clerk whose ledger was entitled "Hommages de Wordsworth" answered:
"5.0, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and Jane, all recited the
sonnet, 'Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee.' Dolores and
Violet attempted to recite it, but failed."
"The poet there celebrates my conquest of the Venetian Republic,"
said the Emperor, "and the greatness of the theme overcame Violet and
Dolores. It is natural that they should fail. And the next phase?"
Another clerk said, "5.15, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and
Jane, are sketching in the left front leg of Pauline Buonaparte's
couch. Dolores and Violet are still learning their sonnet."
"It seems to me," said Napoleon, "that I have heard these charming
names before."
"They are in my ledger, too," said a third clerk. "You may remember,
sire, that about an hour ago they performed Beethoven's 'Eroica'----"
"Written in my honour," concluded the Emperor. "I approve."
"5.30," said a fourth clerk, "with the exception of Dolores and Violet,
who have been sent to sharpen pencils, the whole company sings the
'Marseillaise.'"
"It needed but that," cried Napoleon, rising to his feet. "Ces
demoiselles ont un vrai élan vers la gloire. I decree in recompense
that they and all their house shall participate tomorrow morning in the
victory of Austerlitz."
The decree was entered.
Evening prep. was at 7.30. The girls settled down gloomily, for they
were already bored to tears by the new system. But a wonderful thing
happened. A regiment of cavalry rode past the school, headed by the
most spiffing band. The girls went off their heads with joy. They
rose from their seats, they sang, they advanced, they danced, they
pranced, they made trumpets out of paper and used the blackboard as a
kettle-drum. They were able to do this because Miss Haddon, who ought
to have been supervising, had left the room to find a genealogical tree
of Marie Louise; the history mistress had asked her particularly to
take it to prep. for the girls to climb about in, but she had forgotten
it. "I am no good at all," thought Miss Haddon, as she stretched out
her hand for the tree; it lay with some other papers under a shell
which the Principal had procured from St. Helena. "I am stupid and
tired and old; I wish that I was dead." Thus thinking, she lifted the
shell mechanically to her ear; her father, who was a sailor, had often
done the same to her when she was young....
She heard the sea; at first it was the tide whispering over mud-flats
or chattering against stones, or the short, crisp break of a wave on
sand, or the long, echoing roar of a wave against rocks, or the sounds
of the central ocean, where the waters pile themselves into mountains
and part into ravines; or when fog descends, and the deep rises and
falls gently; or when the air is so fresh that the big waves and the
little waves that live in the big waves all sing for joy, and send one
another kisses of white foam. She heard them all, but in the end she
heard the sea itself, and knew that it was hers for ever.
"Miss Haddon!" said the Principal. "Miss Haddon! How is it you are not
supervising the girls?"
Miss Haddon removed the shell from her ear, and faced her employer with
a growing determination.
"I can hear Ellen's voice though we are at the other side of the
house," she continued. "I half thought it was the elocution hour. Put
down that paper-weight at once, please, Miss Haddon, and return to your
duties."
She took the shell from the music mistress's hand, intending to place
it on its proper shelf. But the force of example caused her to raise it
to her own ear. She, too, listened....
She heard the rustling of trees in a wood. It was no wood that she had
ever known, but all the people she had known were riding about in it,
and calling softly to each other on horns. It was night, and they were
hunting. Now and then beasts rustled, and once there was an "Halloo!"
and a chase, but more often her friends rode quietly, and she with
them, penetrating the wood in every direction and for ever.
And while she heard this with one ear, Miss Haddon was speaking as
follows into the other:
"I will not return to my duties. I have neglected them ever since I
came here, and once more will make little difference. I am not musical.
I have deceived the pupils and the parents and you. I am not musical,
but pretended that I was to make money. What will happen to me now I do
not know, but I can pretend no longer. I give notice."
The Principal was surprised to learn that her music mistress was not
musical; the sound of pianos had continued for so many years that
she had assumed all was well. In ordinary circumstances she would
have answered scathingly, for she was an accomplished woman, but the
murmuring forest caused her to reply, "Oh, Miss Haddon, not now; let's
talk it over tomorrow morning. Now, if you will, I want you to lie down
in my sitting-room while I take preparation instead, for it always
rests me to be with the girls."
So Miss Haddon lay down, and as she dozed the soul of the sea returned
to her. And the Principal, her head full of forest murmurs, went to the
preparation-room, and gave her cough three times before she opened the
door. All the girls were at their desks except Dolores and Violet, and
them she affected not to notice. After a time she went to fetch the
tree of Marie Louise, which she had forgotten, and during her absence
the cavalry passed again....
In the morning Miss Haddon said, "I still wish to go, but I wish I had
waited to speak to you. I have had some extraordinary news. Many years
ago my father saved a man from drowning. That man has just died, and he
has left me a cottage by the edge of the sea, and money to live in it.
I need not work any more; so if only I had waited till today I could
have been more civil to you and"--she blushed a little--"to myself."
But the Principal shook her by both hands and kissed her. "I am glad
that you did not wait," she said. "What you said yesterday was a word
of truth, a clear call through the thicket. I wish that I, too----" She
stopped. "But the next step is to give the school a whole holiday."
So the girls were summoned, and the Principal made a speech, and
Miss Haddon another, giving every one the address of the cottage,
and inviting them to visit her at it. Then Rose was sent to the
pastrycook's for ices, and Enid to the greengrocer's for fruit, and
Mildred to the sweetshop for lemonade, and Jane to the livery stables
for brakes, and they all drove out an immense distance into the
country, and played disorganized games. Every one hid and nobody
sought; every one batted and nobody fielded; no one knew whose side she
was on, and no mistress tried to tell her; and it was even possible
to play two games at once, and to be Clumps in one and Peter Pan in
the other. As for the co-ordinative system, it was never mentioned, or
mentioned in derision. For example, Ellen composed a song against it,
which ran:
Silly old Boney
Sat on his Pony,
Eating his Christmas Pie,
He put in his thumb
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a good boy am I,"
and the smaller girls sang it without stopping for three hours.
At the end of the day the Principal summoned the whole party round Miss
Haddon and herself. She was ringed with happy, tired faces. The sun
was setting, the dust that the day had disturbed was sinking. "Well,
girls," she said, laughing, but just a little shy, "so you don't seem
to value my co-ordinative system?"
"Lauks, we don't!" "Not much!" and so on, replied the girls.
"Well, I must make a confession," the Principal continued. "No more do
I. In fact, I hate it. But I was obliged to take it up, because that
type of thing impresses the Board of Education."
At this all the mistresses and girls laughed and cheered, and Dolores
and Violet, who thought that the Board of Education was a new round
game, laughed too.
* * * * *
Now it may be readily imagined that this discreditable affair did not
escape the attention of Mephistopheles. At the earliest opportunity
he sought the Judgment Seat, bearing an immense scroll inscribed
"J'accuse!" Half-way up he met the angel Raphael, who asked him in his
courteous manner whether he could help him in any way.
"Not this time, thank you," Mephistopheles replied. "I really have a
case now."
"It might be better to show it to me," suggested the archangel.
"It would be a pity to fly so far for nothing, and you had such a
disappointment over Job."
"Oh, that was different."
"And then there was Faust; the verdict there was ultimately against
you, if I remember rightly."
"Oh, that was so different again. No, I am certain this time. I can
prove the futility of genius. Great men think that they are understood,
and are not; men think that they understand them, and do not."
"If you can prove that, you have indeed a case," said Raphael. "For
this universe is supposed to rest on co-ordination, all creatures
co-ordinating according to their powers."
"Listen. Charge one: Beethoven decrees that certain females shall
hear a performance of his A minor quartette. They hear--some of them
a band, others a shell. Charge two: Napoleon decrees that the same
shall participate in the victory of Austerlitz. Result--a legacy,
followed by a school treat. Charge three: Females perform Beethoven.
Being deaf, and being served by dishonest clerks, he supposes they
are performing him with insight. Charge four: To impress the Board of
Education, females study Napoleon. He is led to suppose that they are
studying him properly. I have other points, but these will suffice. The
genius and the ordinary man have never co-ordinated once since Abel was
killed by Cain."
"And now for your case," said Raphael, sympathetically.
"My case?" stammered Mephistopheles. "Why, this is my case."
"Oh, innocent devil," cried the other. "Oh, candid if infernal soul.
Go back to the earth and walk up and down it again. For these people
have co-ordinated, Mephistopheles. They have co-ordinated through the
central sources of Melody and Victory."
THE STORY OF THE SIREN
Few things have been more beautiful than my notebook on the
Deist Controversy as it fell downward through the waters of the
Mediterranean. It dived, like a piece of black slate, but opened soon,
disclosing leaves of pale green, which quivered into blue. Now it had
vanished, now it was a piece of magical india-rubber stretching out
to infinity, now it was a book again, but bigger than the book of all
knowledge. It grew more fantastic as it reached the bottom, where a
puff of sand welcomed it and obscured it from view. But it reappeared,