"You could serve me very much by giving me one or two pieces of information. In the first place let me introduce myself; you, I think, are Herr Helfen?" I bowed. "My name is Eugen Courvoisier. I am the new member of your _städtisches Orchester_."
"_O, was!_" said I, within myself. "That our new first violin!"
"And this is my son," he added, looking down at the plaid bundle, which he held very carefully and tenderly. "If you will tell me at what time the opera begins, what it is to-night, and finally, if there is a room to be had, perhaps in this house, even for one night. I must find a nest for this _Vögelein_ as soon as I possibly can."
"I believe the opera begins at seven," said I, still gazing at him in astonishment, with open mouth and incredulous eyes. Our orchestra contained among its sufficiently varied specimens of nationality and appearance nothing in the very least like this man, beside whom I felt myself blundering, clumsy, and unpolished. It was not mere natural grace of manner. He had that, but it had been cultivated somewhere, and cultivated highly.
"At seven--yes. It is 'Tannhauser' to-night. And the rooms--I believe they have rooms in the house."
"Ah, then I will inquire about it," said he, with an exceedingly open and delightful smile. "I thank you for telling me. Adieu, _mein Herr_."
"Is he asleep?" I asked, abruptly, and pointing to the bundle.
"Yes; _armes Kerlchen_! just now he is," said the young man.
He was quite young, I saw. In that half light I supposed him even younger than he really was. He looked down at the bundle again and smiled.
"I should like to see him," said I, politely and gracefully, seized by an impulse of which I felt ashamed, but which I yet could not resist.
With that I stepped forward and came to examine the bundle. He moved the plaid a little aside and showed me a child--a very young, small, helpless child, with closed eyes, immensely long, black, curving lashes, and fine, delicate black brows. The small face was flushed, but even in sleep this child looked melancholy. Yet he was a lovely child--most beautiful and most pathetic to see.
I looked at the small face in silence, and a great desire came upon me to look at it oftener--to see it again, then up at that of the father. How unlike the two faces! Now that I fairly looked at the man I found he was different from what I had thought; older, sparer, with more sharply cut features. I could not tell what the child's eyes might be--those of the father were piercing as an eagle's; clear, open, strange. There was sorrow in the face, I saw, as I looked so earnestly into it; and it was worn as if with a keen inner life. This glance was one of those which penetrate deep, not the glance of a moment, but a revelation for life.