In bad company

VI

From that time on, Petro went out to the stable every evening. It never occurred to him to ask Iochim to play in the day-time. To his mind, evidently, the bustle and movement of the daylight hours excluded all thought of these gentle melodies. But as evening drew on the child would be seized with a feverish impatience. Tea, and then supper, were of significance only as signs that the eagerly awaited time was near. And though the mother felt an unreasoning, instinctive dislike for this attraction that drew him so strongly, she could not forbid her darling the pleasure of spending the evening hours, before he was put to bed, listening to Iochim's music in the stable. These hours were now the happiest the child knew. The evening's impressions, as the mother saw with searing jealousy, would remain with him all through the following day. Not even her caresses could evoke his former undivided response. Even when he nestled in her arms, his dreamy look would show that he was thinking of Iochim's music.
It was then that she recalled her own musical accomplishments. It was not so many years, after all, since she had come out of boarding school—Pani Radetskaya's establishment, in Kiev, where, among other "pleasant arts", she had been taught to play the piano. True, this was not too pleasant a memory; for it involved a lively recollection of Fraulein Klapps, the music teacher, an elderly German spinster, hopelessly thin, and hopelessly prosaic, and—what was worst of all—hopelessly cross. She had been very skilful, this acid-tempered lady, at "breaking in" her pupils' fingers and making them flexible; and wonderfully successful, too, in murdering any feeling the girls might have had for the poesy of music. That is a timid feeling, often; and Fraulein Klapps' very presence would have been enough to frighten it away—not to speak of her methods of teaching. And so, after leaving school, young Anna Yatsenko had never had the slightest inclination to go on playing. Nor had this changed with marriage. But now, as she listened to the music this simple Ukrainian peasant drew from his pipe, a new feeling—a lively feeling of melody—began to grow in her heart, side by side with her growing jealousy; and the memory of the German spinster began to fade. And, in the end, Pani Popelskaya asked her husband to buy her a piano.
"As you wish, my love," replied this model husband. "I had thought you weren't fond of music."
The order was sent off that very day. But it would take two or three weeks, at the least, before the piano could be purchased and brought out from town.
And still the pipe trilled its summons every evening; and the boy would run off to the stable without even stopping to ask permission.
The stable smelled of horses, fresh, fragrant hay, and leather harness. The horses would stand quietly munching, with an occasional rustle as they nosed at the hay in their mangers. When the pipe fell silent for a moment, the murmur of the beeches in the garden would come clearly through the evening hush. Petro would sit motionless, as under a charm, drinking in the music.
He would never interrupt. But whenever the music stopped, if it was more than for a minute or two, his charmed listening would give way to a strange, eager excitement. He would stretch out his hands for the pipe, and, with trembling fingers, press it to his lips; but his breath would come so short, in his eagerness, that at first he could produce only faint, quivering trills. Later, little by little, he began to master the simple instrument. Iochim would place his fingers, showing him how to produce each different tone; and, though his tiny hand could barely reach .across the row of finger holes, he soon learned how all the notes were placed. Each note, to him, had its own countenance, its own individual nature. He knew, now, in which of the holes it lived, and how to bring it out. And often, when Iochim was playing some simple tune, the child's fingers would move in unison with his teacher's. He had gained a clear conception of the notes of the scale, their sequence and their location.