GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

To the one of these entertainments next following the fantasia concert came a mob of amateurs, and a select body of pianists, singers, fiddlers, painters, actors and journalists. The noble vice-president of the society, assisted by two of the committee, received the guests in a broad corridor which had been made to resemble a miniature picture gallery. The guests were announced by two Swiss waiters, who were supposed to be able to pronounce foreign names properly because they could not pronounce English ones. Over one name on a gilt ticket, that of a young lady, they broke down; and she entered unannounced with her mother. After her came a member and his party of four: Mr and Mrs Phipson, Mr Charles Sutherland, Miss Sutherland, and Mr Adrian Herbert. Then other members with their parties.

Then the last of the gilt tickets, Mr Owen Jack, who presented the novelty of a black silk handkerchief round the neck with the bow under his right ear.

The company was crowded into two large rooms. There were many more guests than seats; and those who were weak or already weary stood round the walls or by the pianoforte and got what support they could by leaning on them. Mary Sutherland was seated on the end of a settee which supported four other persons, and would have accommodated two comfortably.

“Well?” said Jack, coming behind the settee.

“Well,” echoed Mary.*Why are you so late?”

“For the usual reason — because women are so meddlesome. I could not find my studs, nor anything. I will endure Mother Simpson no longer. Next week I pack.”

“So you have been threatening at any time within the last two years. I wish you would really leave Church Street.”

“So you have been preaching anytime these fifty years. But I I must certainly do so: the woman is unendurable. There goes Charlie. He looks quite a man, like the rest of us, in his swallow-tail coat.”

“He looks and is insufferably self-conscious. How crowded the rooms are: They ought to give their conversazione in St James’s Hall as well as their concerts.”

“They never did and never will do anything as it ought to be done. Where’s your guide, philosopher, and friend?”

“Whom do you mean, Mr Jack?”

“What color is your dress?”

“Sea green. Why?”

“Nothing. I was admiring it just now.”

“Does my guide, philosopher, et cetera, mean Mr Herbert?”

“Yes, as you know perfectly well. You are not above giving yourself airs occasionally. Come, where is he? Why is he not by your side?”

“I do not know, I am sure. He came in with us — Charlie?”

“Well?” said Charlie, who was beginning to stand on his manhood. “What are you shouting at me for? Oh, how d’ye do, Mr Jack?”

“Where is Adrian?” said Mary.

“In the next room, of course.”

“Why of course?” said Jack.

“Because Miss Spitsneezncough — or whatever her unpronounceable name may be — is there. If I were you, Mary, I should look rather closely after Master Adrian’s attentions to the fair Polack.”

“Hush. Pray do not talk so loud, Charlie.” Charlie turned on his heel, and strolled away, buttoning on a white glove with a negligent air.

“Come into the next room,” said Jack.

“Thank you. I prefer to stay where I am.”

“Come, Mrs. Obstinate. I want to see the fair Polack too: I love her to distraction. You shall see Mister Herbert supplanting me in her affections.”

“I shall stay with Mrs. Phipson. Do not let me detain you, if you wish to go.”

“You are going to be ill-natured and spoil our evening, eh?”

Mary suppressed an exclamation of impatience, and rose. “If you insist on it, of course I will come. Mrs. Phipson: I am going to walk through the rooms with Mr Jack.”

Mrs Phipson, from mere habit, looked doubtful the propriety of the arrangement; but Jack walked off with Mary before anything further passed. In the next room they found a dense crowd and a very warm atmosphere. A violinist stood tuning his instrument near the pianoforte at which the young Polish lady sat. Close by was Adrian Herbert, looking intently at her.

“Aha!” said Jack, following his companion’s look, “Mister Adrian’s thoughts have come to an anchor at last.” As he spoke, the music began.

“What are they playing?” said Mary with affected indifference.

“The Kreutzer Sonata.”

“Oh! I am so glad.”

“Are you indeed? What a thing it is to be fond of music! Do you know that we shall have to stand here mumchance for the next twenty minutes listening to them?”

“Surely if I can enjoy the Kreutzer Sonata, you can. You are only pretending to be unmusical.”

“I wish they had chosen something shorter. However, since we are here, we had better hold our tongues and listen.”

The Sonata proceeded; and Adrian listened, rapt. He did not join in the applause between the movements: it jarred on him.

Why don’t you teach yourself to play like that?” said Jack to Mary.

“I suppose because I have no genius,” she replied, not pleased by the question.

“Genius! Pshaw! What are you clapping your hands for?”

“You seem to be in a humor for asking unnecessary questions tonight, Mr Jack. I applaud Herr Josefs because I admire his playing.”

“And Mademoiselle. How do you like her?”

“She is very good, of course. But I really do not see that she is so much superior to other pianists as you seem to consider her. I enjoy Josefs’ playing more than hers.”

“Indeed,” said Jack. “Ho! Ho! Do you see that hoary-headed villain looking across at us? That is the man who protested against my fantasia as a work of the devil; and now he is coming to ask me to play.”

“And will you play?”

“Yes. I promised Miss Szczympliça that I would.”

“Then you had better take me back to Mrs Phipson.”

“What! You will not wait and listen to me?”

“It cannot possibly matter to you whether I listen or not. I cannot stand here alone.”

“Then come back to Mrs. Phipson. I will not play.”

“Now pray do not be so disagreeable, Mr Jack. I wish to go back because no one wants me here.”

“Either you will stay where you are, or I will not play.”

“I shall do as I please, Mr Jack. You have Mademoiselle Sczympliça to play for. I cannot stay here alone.”

“Mr Herbert will take care of you.”

“I do not choose to disturb Mr Herbert.”

“Well, well, here is your brother. Hush! — if you call him Charlie aloud here, he will be sulky. Mr Sutherland.”

“What’s the matter?” said Charlie gratefully. Jack handed Mary over to him and presently went to the piano at the invitation of the old gentleman he had pointed out, who wore a gold badge on his coat as one of the stewards of the entertainment. He had composed a symphony — his second — that year for the Antient Orpheus: a laborious, conscientious, arid symphony, full of unconscious pickings and stealings from Mendelssohn, his favorite master, scrupulously worked up into the strictest academic form. It was a theme from this symphony that Jack now sounded on the pianoforte with one finger.

“That is not very polite.” said Mr Phipson, after explaining this to the Polish lady. “Poor Maclagen! He does not seem to like having his theme treated in that fashion.”

“If he intends it derisively,” said Adrian indignantly, “it is in execrable taste. Mr Maclagan ought to leave the room.”

“You think like me, Monsieur Herbert,” said Mademoiselle Szczympliça “All must be forgiven to Monsieur Jacques; but he should not insult those who are less fortunately gifted than he. Besides, it is an old man.”

Jack then began improvising on the theme with a capriciousness of which the humor was lost on the majority of the guests. He treated it with an eccentricity which burlesqued his own style, and then with a pedantry which burlesqued that of the composer. At last, abandoning this ironical vein when it had culminated in an atrociously knock-kneed fugato, he exercised his musical fancy in earnest, and succeeded so well that Maclagan felt tempted to rewrite the middle section of the movement from which the subject was taken. The audience professed to be delighted, and were in truth dazzled when Jack finished by a commonplace form of variation in which he made a prodigious noise with his left hand, embroidered by showers of arpeggios with his right.