William Gass - Middle C

Mr. Hirk had managed to raise an admonitory finger. Marcella Sembrich, wisely counseled, he said sternly, had not strained her voice singing Wagner. Oh she was pure bel canto, pure Italian, he said with hoarse approval. Always, small Joey, she studied. Her whole career. To sing Lucia , to sing Traviata . To sing Verdi, Donizetti, Puccini. But you are playing at playing, not working at playing, you are only pleasing yourself, small Joey. Well, you must stop having fun and learn the fundamentals. Then you may be able to please someone else.

In these words small Joey heard he hadn’t made Mr. Hirk happy. That’s what he heard. Moreover, the name — Small Joey — was new, and not nice. These criticisms restiffened his resolve. He would hand Mr. Hirk his envelope, give him the small sum he was charging for the lessons, and say his services were no longer needed. He would do this with a dignity for which he was presently searching.

But Mr. Hirk, who had not heard what Joey was resolving, who had not felt the stiffening of anyone’s will, went on without pause to another tale. This anecdote was about a true pianist. It might have been titled: “Ignace Jan Paderewski and the Spider.” The story was wholly unfamiliar to Joey, who had decided not to listen. Like you, Paderewski was slow to become a student; like you he had bad teachers; like you he learned through his ears and had no technique, only instinctive fingers that went for the nearest note like kids after cake; yes, yes, like you he did not know how to work. Yet he became the greatest pianist of his time. Of his time … And more than that …

Joey let his features settle into the sullenness that Miriam found so insufferable, but Mr. Hirk’s mind was in another country, an ocean and a sea away, where Joey was an eager auditor whatever his face let on. Mr. Hirk cleared his throat of phlegm that, fortunately, never materialized.

Paderewski was studying in Vienna with Leschetizky — a name you do not know, because I have taught you nothing — and he had taken a couple of tiny rooms near the villa of this greatest of piano teachers, the author of a method named for him that had helped to eminence some of the most famous pianists of that age. Young Paderewski, as I say, had no technique; he was like you in that, small Joey, though he was, I must also say, a master of the pedal, he pedaled better than you do perched upon your bike. He did not kick the pedal, or otherwise abuse it, he caressed it—“footsie,” we say, you know — he played footsie with the pedal. Never did he chew upon himself neither. He was growed up! Anyway — are you listening? This is a lesson, which is what you are here for — so — one day, in his little candlelit room as dark as this one on account of the plants, Paderewski was practicing a piece by Chopin, an exercise in thirds. You do know thirds? While he was playing, a tiny spider dropped down from the ceiling to just one side of him, a bit above the deck of the piano, on a threadlike length of web. Do you know the word “gossamer”? The spider hung there listening to the Chopin. It was no more than a dot suspended in the air — a piece of punctuation. The spider hung there while Paderewski played. Hear him? How he played, that man!

You may smile, Mr. Hirk said, although Joey hadn’t softened his sullenness by a twitch. Paderewski smiled himself. He was charmed. So … when the exercise in thirds had been completed, he went on, as was his habit, to another one in sixths. The spider immediately scampered, as it seemed, up his silver line to the ceiling. Observing this — you see it? — Paderewski returned to the exercise in thirds and began to repeat it. Lo, believe it and behold, eh? down like a fireman his pole the spider slid. All the way to the piano deck where he sat and once more listened. At the end of that exercise, which he had to repeat entirely because it so enchanted the spider, Paderewski went about his other business. How long must one entertain a tiny spider, no bigger than a period? Especially one who hasn’t paid for its seat at the concert …

Joey did smile now, but he thought the story was at an end. Mr. Hirk stared vacantly into vacated space. Time in the tale … time in the tale was passing. That’s why he stared. A stare that was to stand for elapsing hours. Then his head moved back to Joey. It was an animal’s maneuver.

The next morning Paderewski returned to the piano and his practice. The thread hung there still, and down that thread came the spider again the moment the study in thirds commenced. Paderewski pursued the étude, and the spider continued to sit on the deck or hang just above it from the thread so long as the piece was played. This behavior went on, not for another day, or a few days, or a week, but for many weeks, Joey … many weeks … Faithfully the spider appeared, quietly it listened, its brilliant tiny eyes shining like diamonds, and just as often, just as promptly, it disappeared up its rope when the étude concluded, as if annoyed, even angry, Paderewski thought, leaving beneath it the detestable sound of sixths.

I once had a small mouse that kept me company, Mr. Hirk said, though he was only foraging for food and was never an enthralled audience for my playing. No enthrallment. Not for me. So … where was … ah … I am here … but Paderewski … Well, vacation time came for Paderewski. He didn’t practice in that room again for a number of weeks, and when he returned in the fall, the spider was gone, as was the spider’s thread, rolled up after him perhaps, when he went searching for a more melodious space.

What is the lesson? Is that your question, Joey? Joey had heard Mr. Hirk’s story despite his intended deafness and would remember it too, against every wish, but he had no curiosity about its character and therefore no question about its content. It was just an amusing oddity — this story. Like the fables of Aesop, Mr. Hirk said, rather portentously, this trifling occurrence has a moral.

The major third, my young friend, Mr. Hirk continued, changing his tone, is that upon which all that is good and warm and wholesome and joyful in nature is built. Not for it the humble, the impoverished, the sacrificial, the stoical — no — it is the ground of the garden, it signifies the real right way, as Beethoven knew when he wrote the finale for his Fifth Symphony . Mr. Hirk leaned like a broken pole against the piano. Hold out your hand, Joey, hold it out, the gnawed right hand that plays — there — that hand is pagan, it is a human hand, it is for shaking and touching and grasping and caressing; it is not made to be a fist; it is not made for praying, for gestures of disdain, for tearing one’s hair or holding one’s head, for stabbing, for saluting; well, now, see my hand here? this crab? this wadded clutch of knotted fingers? it is the sacred hand, the scarred and crucified claw, the toil-destroyed hand, fit only to curse its God. It has given up every good thing. Having given up every good thing, no good thing comes near. Not, certainly, the major third, the pagan chord. The foundation of nature — which is vibration … Nature is nothing but vibration.

These hands — my uglies — my hands are a denial … they deny life. They deny you, Joey, all others’ bodies; they deny me. They deny light; they keep caged the darkness clenched in their clench. They are my shame — these uglies — my pain — these uglies — my curse. It makes me sad — sorry — sad and sorry to see them. You understand? Sometimes I hide them inside of my shirt. Then I feel their heat hot on my belly.

Out of breath Mr. Hirk sat in silence for a few moments. When Monteverdi wished to say “joyful is my heart” he did so in the major third; when Handel refers to life’s sweetest harmonies he does so in the major third; what is central to the “Ode to Joy” but the major third? in La Traviata , when they all lift their glasses and cry “Drink!” “ Libiamo! ” they do so to the major third; and what does Wagner use, at the opening of The Ring , to describe the sensuously amoral state of nature? he employs the major third; then just listen to that paean of praise in Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms or the finale of Shostakovich’s Fifth , and you will hear again the major third.