Gertrude Read online

  "Look," she cried, taking a deep breath, "we must toboggan down that field! Or are you afraid, my hero?"

  I looked down and was astonished, for the slope was so steep that for the moment I was really afraid at the thought of such a daring ride.

  "Oh, no," I said nonchalantly. "It is already much too dark."

  She immediately began to mock and provoke me, called me a coward and said she would ride down the slope alone if I was too fainthearted to come with her.

  "We shall overturn, of course," she said laughing, "but that is the most amusing part of tobogganing."

  She provoked me so much that I had an idea.

  "Liddy," I said softly, "we'll do it. If we overturn, you can rub snow over me, but if we go down all right, then I want my reward."

  She just laughed and sat down on the toboggan. I looked at her face; it was bright and sparkling. I took my place in the front, told her to hold tight to me, and, as we set off, I felt her clasp me and cross her hands on my chest. I wanted to shout something back to her but I could no longer do so. The slope was so steep that I felt as if we were hurtling through the air. I immediately tried to put both feet on the ground in order to pull up or even overturn, for suddenly I was terribly worried about Liddy. However, it was too late. The toboggan whizzed uncontrollably down the hill. I was aware of a cold, biting mass of churned-up snow in my face. I heard Liddy cry out anxiously--then no more. There was a tremendous blow on my head as if from a sledgehammer; somewhere there was a severe pain. My last feeling was of being cold.

  With this brief and frenzied toboggan ride, I atoned for all my youthful overexuberance and foolhardiness. After it was over, among many other things my love of Liddy had also evaporated.

  I was spared the tumult and agitation which took place after the accident. For the others it was a painful time. They had heard Liddy shout out and they laughed and teased from above in the darkness. Finally, they realized that something was wrong and climbed laboriously down to us. It took a little while for them to calm down and really understand the true situation. Liddy was pale and half unconscious, but quite unharmed; only her gloves were torn and her delicate white hands were a little bruised and bleeding. They carried me away thinking I was dead. At a later date I looked in vain for the apple or pear tree into which the toboggan had crashed and broken my bones.

  It was thought that I had a serious concussion but matters were not quite so bad. My head and brain were indeed affected and it was a long time before I regained consciousness in the hospital, but the wound healed and my brain was unharmed. On the other hand, my left leg, which was broken in several places, did not fully heal. Since that time I have been a cripple who can only walk with a limp, who cannot stride along or even run and dance. My youth was thus unexpectedly directed along a path to quieter regions, along which I traveled not without a feeling of shame and resistance. But I did go along it and sometimes it seems to me that I would not willingly have missed that toboggan ride and its effect on my life.

  I confess that I think less about the broken leg than about the other consequences of the accident, which were far happier. Whether it can be attributed to the accident, the shock and the glimpse into darkness, or the long period of lying in bed, being quiet for months and thinking things over, the course of treatment proved beneficial to me.

  The beginning of that long period of lying in bed--say, the first week--has quite vanished from my memory. I was unconscious a great part of the time, and even when I finally recovered full consciousness, I was weak and listless. My mother arrived and every day sat faithfully beside my bed in the hospital. When I looked at her and spoke a few words, she seemed calm and almost cheerful, although I learned later that she was very worried about me, not for my life but for my reason. Sometimes we chatted for a long time in the quiet little hospital room. Yet our relationship had never been very warm. I had always been closer to my father. Sympathy on her part and gratitude on mine made us more understanding and inclined to draw closer, but we had both waited too long and had become too accustomed to a mutual laisser faire for awakening affection to show itself in our conversation. We were glad to be together and left some things unspoken. She was again my mother who saw me lying ill and could care for me, and I saw her once again through a boy's eyes and for a time forgot everything else. To be sure, the old relationship was resumed later and we used to avoid talking much about this period of sickness, for it embarrassed us both.

  Gradually I began to realize my position, and as I had recovered from the fever and seemed peaceful, the doctor no longer kept the news from me that I would have a permanent memento as a result of my fall. I saw my youth, which I had scarcely begun to enjoy consciously, grievously cut short and impoverished. I had plenty of time in which to appreciate the situation, as I was bedridden for another three months.

  I then tried hard to grasp my situation and visualize the shape of my future life, but I did not make much progress. Too much thinking was still not good for me. I soon became tired and sank into a quiet reverie, by which nature protected me from anxiety and despair and compelled me to rest in order to recover my health. The thought of my misfortune tormented me frequently, often half through the night, without my finding anything in my predicament to console me.

  Then one night I awakened after a few hours of peaceful slumber. It seemed to me that I had had a pleasant dream and I tried in vain to recall it. I felt remarkably well and at peace, as if all unpleasant things were surmounted and behind me. And as I lay there thinking and feeling light currents of health and relief pervade me, a melody came to my lips almost without any sound. I began to hum it and unexpectedly, music, which had so long been a stranger, came back to me like a suddenly revealed star, and my heart beat to its rhythm, and my whole being blossomed and inhaled new, pure air. It did not reach my consciousness; I just felt its presence and it penetrated my being gently, as if melodious choirs were singing to me in the distance.

  With this inwardly refreshed feeling I fell asleep again. In the morning I was in a good humor and free from depression, which I had not been for a long time. My mother noticed it and asked what was making me feel happy. I reflected awhile and then said that I had not thought about my violin for a long time; but now I suddenly did and it gave me pleasure.

  "But you will not be able to play for a long time yet," she said in a somewhat worried tone.

  "That does not matter--nor does it matter if I never play again."

  She did not understand and I could not explain to her. But she noticed that things were going better with me and that nothing ominous lurked beneath this unfounded cheerfulness. After a few days she cautiously mentioned the matter again.

  "How are you progressing with your music? We almost believed that you were tired of it and your father has spoken to your teachers about it. We do not want to persuade you, least of all just now ... but we do feel that if you have made a mistake and would rather give it up, you should do so and not continue out of a feeling of defiance or shame. What do you think?"

  I again thought about the long period of my alienation and disillusionment with music. I tried to tell my mother what it had been like and she seemed to understand. I thought I now saw my goal clearly again and I would not, at all events, run away from it but finish my studies. That is how things remained for the time being. In the depths of my soul, where my mother could not penetrate, there was sweet music. Whether or not I should now have any luck with the violin, I could again hear the world resound as if it were a work of art and I knew that outside music there was no salvation for me. If my condition never permitted me to play the violin again, I would resign myself to it, perhaps consider another career or even become a merchant; it was not so important. As a merchant, or anything else, I would not be any less sensitive to music or live and breathe less through music. I would compose again! It was not, as I had said to my mother, the thought of my violin that made me happy, but the intense desire to make music, to create. I again often felt th
e clear vibrations of a rarefied atmosphere, the concentration of ideas, as I had previously in my best hours, and I also felt that the misfortune of a crippled leg was of little importance beside it.

  From that time on I was victorious, and however often since then my desires have traveled into regions of physical fitness and youthful pleasures, and however often I have hated and cursed my crippled state with bitterness and a deep sense of shame, it has not been beyond my power to bear this load; there has been something there to console and compensate me.

  Occasionally my father came down to see me and, one day, as I continued to improve, he took my mother home with him again. For the first few days I felt rather lonely, and also rather ashamed that I had not talked more affectionately to my mother and taken more interest in her thoughts and cares. But my other emotion was so vivid that these thoughts about good intentions and feelings of compassion receded into the background.

  Then unexpectedly someone came to visit me who had not ventured to do so while my mother was there. It was Liddy. I was very surprised to see her. For the first moment I entirely forgot how close I had been to her recently and how deeply in love. She came in a state of great embarrassment, which she disguised very badly. She had been afraid of my mother and even a law suit, for she knew she was responsible for my misfortune, and only gradually realized that things were not so bad and that the matter was really not her concern. She breathed freely again but could not conceal a feeling of slight disappointment. The girl, despite her troubled conscience, had in her feminine heart deeply enjoyed the whole business with its heart-rending and touching consequences. She even used the word "tragic" several times, at which I could hardly conceal a smile. She had not really been prepared to see me so cheerful and so little concerned about my crippled leg. She had had it in mind to ask my forgiveness, the granting of which, she thought, would have given me, her beloved, tremendous satisfaction, so that at the climax of this stirring scene she would have triumphantly conquered my heart anew.

  It was indeed no small relief to the foolish girl to see me so contented and to find herself free from all blame and accusation. However, this relief did not make her feel happy, and the more her conscience was eased and her anxiety removed, the quieter and cooler did I see her become. Subsequently, it hurt her not a little that I regarded her part in the affair as so slight and indeed even seemed to have forgotten it, that I had quenched her apology and all the emotion and ruined the whole pretty scene. Moreover, and despite my extreme politeness, she realized that I was no longer in love with her, and that was the worst thing of all. Even if I had lost my arms and legs, I should still have been an admirer of hers, whom indeed she did not love and who had never given her any pleasure, but if I had been wretchedly lovesick, it would have been a greater source of satisfaction to her. That was not the case, as she so well observed, and I saw the warmth and interest on the pretty face of the sympathetic visitor gradually grow less and disappear. After an effusive farewell, she finally went away and never came again, though she faithfully promised to do so.

  However painful it was to me and however much it reflected on my power of judgment to see my previous infatuation sink into insignificance and become laughable, the visit did in fact do me good. I was very surprised to see this attractive girl for the first time without passion and without rose-colored spectacles, and to realize that I had not known her at all. If someone had shown me the doll I had embraced and loved when I was three years old, the lack of interest and change of feeling could not have surprised me more than in this case, when I saw as a complete stranger this girl whom I had so strongly desired a few weeks earlier.

  Of the companions who were present at that Sunday outing in the winter, two visited me several times, but we found little to talk about. I saw how relieved they were when I improved, and I asked them not to bring me any more gifts. We did not meet again later. It was a strange business and it made a sad and curious impression on me; everything that had belonged to me in these earlier years of my life went from me and became alien and lost to me. I suddenly saw how sad and artificial my life had been during this period, for the loves, friends, habits and pleasures of these years were discarded like badly fitting clothes. I parted from them without pain and all that remained was to wonder that I could have endured them so long.

  I was surprised to receive another visitor to whom I had never given a thought. That strict and ironic gentleman, my piano teacher, came to see me one day. Holding his walking-stick and wearing gloves, he spoke in his usual sharp, almost biting tones, called the illfated toboggan ride "that women's ride business," and by the tone of his words seemed to feel that my ill-luck was well-deserved. All the same, it was remarkable that he had come, and he also showed, though he did not change his tone of voice, that he had not come with bad intentions, but to tell me that despite my general awkwardness he considered me a passable student. His colleague, the violin teacher, was of the same opinion and they therefore hoped I would soon return fit and well and give them pleasure. Although this speech almost sounded like an apology for previous harsh treatment and was delivered in the same sharp tones, it was as sweet to me as a declaration of love. I gratefully held out my hand to the unpopular teacher and, in order to show confidence in him, I tried to explain the course of my life during these years and how my old attitude toward music was beginning to return.

  The professor shook his head and his voice whistled with derision as he said: "So a composer is what you want to become?"

  "If possible," I said disheartened.

  "Well, I wish you luck. I thought you would now resume practicing with fresh enthusiasm, but if you want to compose, you don't, of course, need to do that."

  "Oh, I didn't mean that."

  "What then? You know, when a music student is lazy and doesn't like hard work, he always takes up composing. Anyone can do that, and each one, of course, is a genius."

  "I really don't mean that at all. Shall I become a pianist then?"

  "No, my dear friend, you could never become that--but you could become a reasonably good violinist."

  "I wish to do that, too!"

  "I hope you mean it. Well, I must not stay any longer. Hope you will soon be better. Goodbye."

  Thereupon he went away and left me with a feeling of amazement. I had thought very little about the return to my studies. Now I became afraid things would be difficult and go wrong again and that everything would be as it had been before, but these thoughts did not remain with me long, and it also seemed as if the grumpy professor's visit was well-meant and a sign of sincere good will.

  After I had sufficiently recovered my health, it was intended that I should go away for a period of convalescence, but I preferred to wait until the usual vacation. I wished to return to work immediately. I then experienced for the first time what an astonishing effect a period of rest can have, particularly a compulsory one. I began my studies and my practicing with mistrust, but everything now went better than before. To be sure, I now fully realized that I would never become a virtuoso, but in my present mood this did not trouble me. Besides, matters were going well. In particular, the impenetrable undergrowth of music theory, harmony and the study of composition had been transformed into an accessible, attractive garden. I felt that the sudden flashes of insight and the musical sketches I made during my best hours no longer defied all the rules and laws, but that through assiduous study a narrow but clearly discernible path was leading to freedom. There were indeed hours and days and nights when I still seemed to be confronted by an insurmountable barrier and with a tired brain I struggled vainly against contradictions and pitfalls, but I did not despair again and I saw the narrow path become clearer and more accessible.

  When school closed at the end of the term, the teacher who taught theory said to me, much to my surprise: "You are the only student this year who really seems to understand something about music. If you ever compose anything, I should like to see it."

  With these comforting wor
ds ringing in my ears, I set off for my holidays. I had not been home for a long time, and during the railway journey I again pictured my native place with affection, and conjured up a series of half-forgotten memories of my childhood and early youth. My father was waiting for me at the station and we drove home in a cab. The following morning I already felt an urge to go for a walk through the old streets. For the first time I was overcome with a feeling of tragedy at my lost youthful fitness. It was painful to me to have to lean on a stick and limp with my crooked, stiff leg along these lanes, where every corner reminded me of boyish games and past pleasures. I came back home feeling dejected, and no matter whom I saw or whose voices I heard or what I thought about, everything reminded me bitterly of the past and my crippled state. At the same time, I was also unhappy because my mother was less enthusiastic than ever about my choice of career, although she did not actually tell me so. A musician who could make an appearance as a slender, erect virtuoso or an impressive-looking conductor, she might have conceded, but that a semi-cripple with only moderate qualifications and a shy disposition could bring himself to continue as a violinist was inconceivable to her. In this connection she was supported by an old friend who was a distant relative. My father had once forbidden her to come to the house, which caused her to conceive a violent dislike for him, although this did not keep her away, for she often came to see my mother while my father was at the office. She had never liked me and had scarcely ever spoken to me since I was a young boy. She saw in my choice of career an unfortunate sign of degeneration and in my accident an obvious punishment and the hand of Providence.

  In order to give me pleasure, my father arranged for me to be invited to play a solo in a concert to be given by the town's Music Society. But I felt I could not do so. I refused and retired for many days to the small room which I had occupied as a boy. I was particularly harassed by all the questions I had to answer and by having to account for myself all the time, so that I hardly ever went out. I then found myself looking out of the window at the life in the street and at the school children, and above all I looked at the young girls with unhappy longing.