LISZT’S CONCERTO PATHÉTIQUE
It was in the winter of 1906 that the following remarkable incidents were communicated to me, and truly in a most remarkable manner. But who may say what shall be the intermediary link, the invisible tie to connect us with the facts of a vanished past? Who may say what vague but mentally potent beings dwell on the border line separating the real from the unreal, floating up perhaps from unthinkable depths of time and space, there to await the propitious moment for tapping some nerve of consciousness in us and establishing telegraphic communication with the soul? Over these spirit wires of thought and feeling they flash faint messages. They set the nerves a-tingle with the consciousness of an infinity of unknown lives surrounding our own, of invisible electric bodies that shock us into the recovery of forgotten memories, of the realization of a limitless land that spreads beside us and upon the verge of which we live precariously poised.
On an afternoon in the winter of 1906 I attended a concert given by two well-known pianists. The pièce de résistance of the concert—it was for this that I had come—was a two-piano number, the Concerto Pathétique of Liszt, that sonorous tone tragedy with its wildly dramatic incidents, interrupted from time to time by a melody of more than mortal sweetness. As I listened, annoyed by the movements of seat companions, the bobbing black heads in front, or the dry winter light that filtered through a window to the right, striking sharply a corsage ornament or a jewel, and projecting into my eyes daggered light as from a crystal ball, suddenly my surroundings vanished, and I found myself alone looking out across a land that I had never seen.
Before me lay a twilight desert, somber and lonely. Gray sand, uninterrupted by tree or dwelling, as undulating and as barren as the sea, stretched on and on. After a time I discovered that it was not twilight that caused the dimness. Upon the horizon there was nothing to indicate the vanishing of a sun or the future rising of a moon. Within the sky there were no stars. A Cimmerian twilight lay over all. I realized then that it was some place of purgatorial punishment, where sweet light did not come nor green earth growths, nor rain, nor the sound of leaves. It was a place of puzzling incompleteness and fragmentary physical form. There were arms twisted and bony and unattached to bodies, whose bent-fingered hands thirsted for cruelty or itched for gold. There were legs wrinkled and withered with pain and curved fantastically. There were backs bowed by the bearing of burdens, and a multitude of winged and awful faces forming a discordant chromatic scale of miseries, now flashing out leering and wanton smiles, and anon fading away into monotonous grayness.
It was a land of disembodied pain, where the shadow forms of sorrow dwelled. Regret, remorse, shame, misery, and anguish here got themselves clothed in unearthly substances, and strained futilely earthward where repentance lay. Here evil thoughts and desires were at once translated into form, swiftly to fade back again by uncountable disgusting gradations to the insubstantiality of dreams.
Across this desert a woman fled, breathless with haste and terror. She was young, scarcely more than a child, as years count, and she would have been beautiful had not her features been disfigured by grief. Out behind, a long black robe floated like an emblem of evil, giving to her appearance a certain cloistral touch. Closer inspection proved it to be a nun’s cloak. It was unfastened and thrown hastily about her where it was held together by one small nervous hand. Her hair, which was pale gold, was short-cropped and curly, and bore the imprint of a close covering. There was something pitiful in these little clustering curls of faded gold, which were down-soft like the hair on a baby’s neck. They told of helplessness and youth. Now in places they were darkened by the perspiration of fear. Cloistral life and the nun’s hood had bleached her face and given to it a marble pallor, until it seemed to radiate light in the general dimness. Her eyes were a dark ethereal blue. In their depths lay a light made of blended pain, passion, and regret. As the hideous sand monsters drifted toward her, threatening to block her way, then vanished to reshape themselves into still more hideous forms, childishly she opened her mouth to call for help. But no sound issued from her lips, although the little chin quivered piteously. I knew that she was dumb and could not speak.
As she sped on, upborne by an unnatural energy, there rang out upon the desert air a melody of more than mortal sweetness, the brief and broken fragment of a phrase. As the music died away upon the moonless space, there fell across the sand the pallid cold radiance of a cross, but so far away, so etherealized by space and distance, that it was scarcely more than a shadow’s shadow.
At first, I thought that the music was in some inexplicable way related to the beauty of her face—that perhaps they were one. There was a similarity between them. Both set to vibrating the same responsive fibers of the heart. Both were penetratingly sweet, yet touched with sorrow.
Further consideration proved this conjecture to be vain, and that the music came from some alien yet nearby place. I could see by the woman’s face that it caused her joy and sorrow, and I felt that it always sang on in her heart, and that her trembling lips tried to frame its sounds. Yet—in some way I could not understand—it kept her forever outside the radiance of the cross.
Again and again it rang out—a melody of more than mortal sweetness. And each time the woman hastened her pace. The face of the desert began to change, and in the distance there was something that lay like the shimmer of light. I watched it as it grew brighter. Colors were distinguishable. It was a garden! Oh, the yearning in her face! Oh, the effort with which she summoned strength to reach it! Her eyes grew black with determination. Her little curls were spotted with moisture. Sweeter and more penetrating became the breath of melody. It winged her feet with courage. It put strength into her heart. Yes, yes, there it lay! A fresh, bright, green garden, where a happy multitude of tiny blue and white flowers grew. Over it iris-winged insects fluttered. The sun shone resplendently. Here was the home of the melody. Its sweetness was that of love and the fullness of life. Now the radiance of the cross no longer touched the sandy waste. It remained high in the air, aloof and far, a wan gold shadow of exquisite remoteness, like the ghost of a vanished joy.
As she drew nearer, more intense became the light that fell upon the garden. It became a blue and dazzling glory, beneath which the tiny flowers expanded and expanded until they were lilies of mammoth size and proportion. Oh, so lustrous, so satin soft, so voluptuously lovely was their texture! A rare fragrance filtered from them through the sand-thick air, a languorous, seductive, benumbing fragrance, like the intangible soul of pleasure. When again the music came, the giant lily buds burst open, disclosing in place of pistil and stamen the white glorious bodies of women, whose hair outfloated in bright crinkles like blown flame, and whose feet trod an amorous measure.
Now I knew whence the music came. It was made by the twining beauty of seductive arms, the swaying of bright torsos, the interlacing of lithe limbs, the argent light struck from bared breasts and brows. It was their white passion, their wanton loveliness, their amorous longing, their electric, vital, and indomitable youth translated into tone.
Far above the desert now, the wan cross hung in dim remoteness, a faint frown of light, withdrawing coldly into the depths of space. The garden glory touched the woman’s face. The sand monsters fell back, no longer encumbering her. Happiness and courage shone from her eyes. The journey was nearly over. A step—a dozen steps and she would have gained the garden. She was all but there. She flung away the convent cloak. The sweet wind lifted the little curls upon her brow. A blue lily leaned amorously to meet her, its petals ready to enfold her. The strange light swathed her about like a robe. The melody touched her heart to joy. She was ready to grasp a waiting flower; one white hand reached for it, when a thunder of many wings was heard.
From across the desert, from the sky above, a multitude of blackish green-winged monsters, darkening the air to a dun midnight, dashed down. Their black and sullen bodies, outspread wing on wing, shut out the garden and formed a hideous wall of crawling heads. The great wings surrounded and engulfed her, beating her back—back—back—with lightning-like rapidity. Away, away, away they swept her, so swiftly that the desert was left behind. And still they swept her on and on, across another land—a land of granite, bleak and sterile and black, whose darkness was shivered from time to time by the angry glare of whirling swords that formed the mighty gate of a realm of night. Here the whirring wings uplifted her. She had no more hold upon the earth. Below, above, beside, were depth on depth of overlapping wings. Once, for an instant, the swaying, fluttering band fell back. Sharp sword light streaked her face. I saw its white horror and the little curls a-dance with fear. Then more monsters came rushing. The earth and the air were a-quiver with wings. There was a rush and a roar. There was a noise as of many waters. Then the monsters swept away into the land of darkness beyond, where nothing was distinguishable, where there was no measurement of time or space. Again the granite land was lone and silent, its gray immovableness disturbed only by the swinging gate of swords, which streaked the rocks with floating ribbons of light.