This event, this brightest and most outstanding event that took place in Bulwigβs lifeβ¦
Bulwig, who repeatedly returned to the memories of this eventβs impressions and sensations, at last realized how the soul of the music conservatory opened up to him with all its polyphony. He determined it was not only the soul of the building itself, having for centuries been absorbed in a conjuring energy, but rather the soul of something more major and important--perhaps his own soul, organically growing together with the true soul of the music that had sounded...
...At the very least it was majesty... it was majestic...
Isidore, a mate, swaggeringly walked around the piano, so tall, widely gesticulating with his hands.
βI can't manage this one in any way, I miss everything! A-a-a-a!β
Quickly bending over the keyboard, the student drummed down the first sentence of Chopin's twenty-first etude with motionless hands resembling an upturned rake.
Bulwig, with an uncomfortable smile, tried to hold back a surging protest against the mockery of the instrument and the wonderful composition. It was a good thing that Isidore limited himself to only one sentence and, realizing that the rights of the class were still his friend's, instantly rose.
βI know this etude.β Bulwig quickly took the initiative into his own hands, sitting down at the instrument. βOnly I never learned the Chopin version. But I play the Godovsky version very often. And I especially like to combine Chopin's etude in the right hand, and Godovsky's one in the left. Well, to begin with, to play Beethoven's theme itself.β
Bulwig played the beginning of the theme from the finale of the twenty-fifth sonata.
βThis is Beethoven's theme.β
βYes, have you noticed?β
βAh, and I'm wondering...β
βYes, Chopin nicked the theme from Beethoven. They play this one on the Culture channel.β
βAnd I thought it was Chopin's version! And that turned out to be this!
Isidore waved his hand and left. Bulwig immediately began to work on the main movement with precise sound. Forty minutes passed unnoticed, after which there was an abrupt ringing of his phone on the music stand. Bulwig picked up the phone. Andre was calling.
βHello, he said cheekily, βListen,β
βI haven't been to the harpsichord lessons for months, in fact I was there only once.β
βWell done, what else is there to say?β
βIs he adequate?β
βYes, he does not talk except about working on the music. He seems to have no desire to spread on such abstract topics.β
βHe indeed doesn't seem to care at all who visits his lessons and who doesn't. Okay. You'll pass it over about the concertmaster class, okay? Just don't forget. Well, bye.β
βBye.β
Bulwig breathed out happily and ended this conversation that choked him with its foul-mouthed vulgar swagger, as a result of which it was difficult to get rid of Andri at all with already undesirable encounters. Last year he had had problems in some kind of personal life. His entire mind was stuffed with left-wing thoughts of how not to lose a girl who did not belong to him, and he completely got out of his studies. Now his personal life seemed to have improved, thanks to another, as a rare case, exemplary girl who made a deal with her conscience to listen to the constant profanity of her "cool" guy, but his studies still did not get better, now from the fact that the personal life bloomed and smelled.
After this stuffy conversation Bulwig wanted to take a breath of fresh spiritual air and call his friend Nastasia. He was modest in these kinds of things, but even calm communications with the attractive, slightly flirtatious, but nevertheless intelligent girl also filled him with peace and confidence. However, the beeps, as a rare case, lasted indefinitely until they were cut off by the phrase "No answer." Bulwig decided to call back later and took up Prokofiev's sonata. During all this time his gaze repeatedly returned toward the black phone screen. He was so tormented by the thirst to speak out, the desire of even just to talk to this girl whose voice painted life in bright colors and whose laughter, inseparable from her image, enveloped Bulwig with its charming ingenuousness.
However... there was no connection... the screen was impenetrable... thirst bumped into a bleak dead end with a dull pain.
But still, it was necessary to finish the practicing session to the point that the striving for the sublime ideal that he had imagined to be the dominant--albeit intimate idea of music--was satisfied, otherwise he would have to be content all night with the impassive gnawing of a conscience yet rebellious spirit.
Minutes passed, tens of minutes. Music completely enveloped Bulwig with its ideas and hidden torrents, bit by bit opening a veil of curiosity: What could be found in this phrase? What kind of leit-idea is led by a slightly distorted motif? What kind of edification, or perhaps not edification--but a warning--lies behind this trumpet exclamation?
The work, the spiritual work, the tireless advancement of the deepening into the musical web of thought grew into an ideological atmosphere that subtly enveloped the room and even hid itself from the ambulating building guard who carefully checked everything, closed the doors and went to bed with a clear conscience.
The musician's eyes began to slowly close, but sleep was all gone in an instant due to unsatisfied bitterness caused by the thought that he had been just fingering the keyboard for half an hour without a slightest connection to a thought to this process and with such a terrifying uncourteousness towards time.
It was then that, far-far away, the door of the central cabinet creaked in the middle of the second floor. Bulwig, displeased with his delay, gathered his briefcase with quiet anger and now stood on the threshold peering into the all-enveloping darkness. Right in front of him towered the window sills behind the windows, through which a stone building could be dimly seen enclosing a black courtyard with a perimeter. It was dark.. And the very appearance of the building was formidable and merciless. Bulwig felt somehow ill-at-ease, and, squeezing everything inside, turned off the light in the classroom. Fortunately in the corridor to the left, around the corner where he was supposed to go, the duty lamp was clearly shining. Closing the door as quietly as possible, Bulwig set off with unhurried steps, making up as he went what he would say and what he would prove to the sleeping guard. Then a strange detail caught his mind: the corridor was gradually filled with sounds... of a harp. Soft swaying figures, pleasant harmonies, measured rhythm, all that filled the space with such tenderness and longing that Bulwig involuntarily raised his gaze up. But no, the ceiling, as dark it was, remained so. The sounds of the harp, now filling the whole air and resonating from each wall, even seemed to make their way into the very soul of the musician, resonating inside unknown strings. It seemed to Bulwig that the source was around the corner, and it was obvious the light had come from there. With a strongly compressed heart and closed off nerves, Bulwig, keeping a decent distance (good thing that the corridors allowed it) looked around the corner...
The harp, the lovely, proud harp, stood there as on Olympus glittering (though somehow dimly infernally) with its copper waist. The strings alternately resonated as if plastic soft hands were leading them along with their charming tactility alone able to caress to an utter ephemeral dissolution in a solemn way. Bulwig came closer to the harp, and, as he approached, one should point out, very timidly, the sounds became dimmer and dimmer, until at close range they completely turned into a chamber chirping. Bulwig even imagined the outline of a female silhouette whose hands produced such a sublime sound. The figure was serious with a slight sadness... the outlines were extremely vague and soon the silhouette vaporized as if it did not exist. The harp continued to play. Then suddenly the corridor came alive with the sounds of noisy everyday life--someone moved a table, a chair, from the landing and the voices of two students passed by Bulwig hotly discussing an upcoming lesson on counterpoint. "Mystical counterpoint" - for some reason, Bulwig took it into his head, and then behind his back, through all this everyday background, the piercing, sharp, powerful and strong-willed music of Paganini's twenty-fourth caprice cut through, a rhythmically aspiring melody, with such a zeal rising up and immediately being dragged down to a deeper interval, then another attempt to soar--in its turn also doomed--and here a raised up cry, asserting, wailing and succeeding motif that, after passing through a series of steps, falls, broken by a shaky rhythm--yet rises again and with even more exhausted strength, with desperate hopelessness, in this last time raising the urgent question of the unjust and, immediately slayed, falls down. Bulwig involuntarily looked out again into the part of the corridor from which he had just left. At this hour it was again illumined by lamps.
The sound of the violin resonated everywhere; some everyday noise got trampled under it and Bulwig felt with all his soul that this bright, colorful, desperation-saturated violin was coming from behind the door. The violin directly dug into his consciousness, into his vision.
The noise began to increase and reached the dynamics of a real weekday. Without pause someone was walking, someone was talking, youthful voices were chatting, laughing. But nothing was visible, although the lamps were lit as on weekdays...
Indeed, it has become light. And somehow, of his own accord, Bulwig did not even notice how the lamps had turned on. But this hubbub! Bulwig's ears began to pop up by themselves. All this diversity poured into his consciousness, surrounded and stepped on his essence. As soon as the ears got shut - everything started buzzing, echoing in the head like an irreconcilable turned into unbearable reality dream.
Escape! But Bulwig was afraid to run. He was afraid of the hubbub! He was afraid to run into a person of this parallel worldβhe was afraid to disrupt their lives and therefore walked slowly, letting himself get around and avoiding panic. The harp was left behind. He continued, moving closer to the staircase. Hush, slowly, there are, as you can hear, a lot of people here. Closer to the wall. And here is the staircase, everything shrank inside, just not to be knocked down. Closer to the railing and, shutting the eyes, go down, go down in a firm and confident pace. No, still a little more careful, but still without timidity.
The hubbub reached its apogee during this time! Conversations were rushing from every side, music rushing from every classroom. Conversation, chatter, altercation, quarrel, laughter, grin, warning-- everything was raised to an incredible height all the way to the ceiling and condensed into a viscous fog of chaos that fell down onto all single with the mass hubbub.
Hubbub! Bulwig felt it on the last landing, the last staircase stretched under him. Here was the first floor, the reception. Everything was noisily buzzing, the lamps were lit, and everywhere the sounds of musical instruments. And all this chaos--in an exact precision of this word--surged over him, concentrated on him, enveloped Bulwig, not even giving him the strength to descend further. But the musician, either out of desperation, or perhaps due to complete exhaustion, paying no attention to anything, did not notice how he found himself at the reception. Here, surpsingly enough, the sounds did not increase with hellish force, but on the contrary, somehow humbled themselves as if they were waiting for something significant, but continued to actively talk, continued to live.
β¦Bulwig felt ill-at-ease, but what he heard caused him to forget all his inconveniences. An organ rang out over this vast background of the everyday. With his powerful voice he called to the unknown high world of the spirit. The majestic sounds of Bach's D minor toccata intertwined for Bulwig into one platform which lifted him above all the everyday noise which, subdued, began to increase the dynamics of his liveliness again. But organ sounds existed above it all. Strict, high and significant, they fell so deeply into Bulwig's soul that they immediately took possession of it and he freely surrendered to its spiritual apogee!
... Yes, the organ... He, he's his friend. He is his associate and like-minded person who saves him here in this sonic hell, who supports and guides. It's him!
Happiness! For a moment it seemed to Bulwig that he was on the wave of this feeling... and if so, that moment was so great in depth as to contain boundless meaning! ..
And then the melody of the twenty-fourth caprice poured along into the sounds of the toccata, the same theme, without variations. The violin and the organ merged together, they understood each other, existed for each other. It seemed that the organ only appeared to intertwine with the violin, to surrender together with it to the unity of the spirit.
With delight Bulwig gave heed to this sublime talk of the spirit. He didn't care about the other sounds;
he didn't even hear them. Yes, there was a background but it had already concentrated into a single dense and deaf layer, was listened to precisely as a background for them.
But now the last sound of the toccata was absorbed into the walls no longer accompanied by the violin. Bulwig noticed how all extraneous sounds had dispersed or simply ceased to be. Purity and clarity illuminated the entire space, into which the theme of the fugue was wisely being poured. Wisdom. Clarity. Style.
...
Bulwig headed up the stairs. From now on, the sounds guided his consciousness and to leave them was not considered in the slightest.
Second floor. Nothing was heard except the fugue pouring directly from the walls. Bulwig walked down the corridor. Only now did he notice that classes were going on in the classrooms, the locks were open. At the windowsills the rustle of pencil leads on paper could be heard accompanied by an endless series of similar rustles, all from students preparing their homework. Suddenly Bulwig sharply turned around and hurried to escape from the inconvenience he had imposed on them; he felt to the depths of his soul how badly he had interfered with this world.
On the landing, Bulvig stopped again.
...Sounds, these great, powerful sounds... he could not leave without knowing their source, not without ascending to where they had been instigated.
With enchanted determination he began to climb up this spreading carpet of sounds. And with each step, the feeling grew that his essence was cutting through this flowing stream, the music enveloping him, lifting him further and higher, gently erasing the past path as did the utter aesthetic bliss that had captured his soul. Arriving on the third floor, right in front of him was an open classroom, in which, as he knew, was an organ. Stealing a glance there he noticed what he knew. The instrument created music on its own bodice, the instrument itself played music with its having absorbed a lot of soul, but that was music-making of the highest order, a process erected on the very pedestal of consciousness and reason, to the level that presented the spiritual essence of art.
It's so good that it's in this classroom, Bulwig thought. He was happy, and he felt that the source of this wealth was this space in which a couple of years ago he had spent such weary minutes on early Friday mornings, stubbornly mastering the subject in anticipation of the one who, with her smile and greeting, would dispel all languor, longing, loneliness and firmness... He obediently gave the organ to her discretion and when leaving the class had always been amazed at her influence.
.. It's a great time, a great class, and how wonderful that it is from here where art is getting born.
...
Bulwig, on the wave of contentment that had engulfed his soul in such an inspired flow, rushed up the stairs even higher...
On the next landing he paused in mock bewilderment and with a firm step, but with an inner grin, crossing the steps made his way to the fourth floor which stretched like a nest under the very arch of the roof. There were only two rooms here, and with caution, in fear of interfering with the studies, Bulwig went to the last door, where, according to his memory, there were lessons in comprehending world culture. Of course, it had resulted in a very terrible comprehension, because the methodology of this comprehension was unquestioning and merciless! Which made the students treat the subject sometimes with bitter irony, with humor, for which they will have to pay later.
Bulwig stealthily opened the door. At once the soul was touched by the peace and dry monotony of the school day. At the board a teacher's voice was giving a lecture, and the musician also felt the full filling of student seats and their concentrated attention. Interestingly enough, Bulwig could catch the timbre of the voice. It was a low, female chest voice, however his ear was not able to discern what the teacher was talking about. The speech seemed to be blurring into a deaf stream...
The musician cautiously walked to the piano standing in the right corner of the classroom and decided to press one of the keys of this terribly tuned out and loose instrument purely out of student mocking curiosity. But the teacher's voice pontificated so stringently that, although he could not make out the speech, the feeling of the words poured into his soul with identical consonance. The whole atmosphere was so hidden that Bulwig was involuntarily seized with little shudders. How could he have acted so frivolously?! Quickly, quickly leave this world before the unforeseen happens! Before it was too late. The sounds of the organ had already been lost, the instrument had retreated into chamber music playing within its room, sometimes spilling sounds around the corridor as far as the intentionally left ajar doors allowed.
Bulwig quickly descended, rewound the last event in his head, and he closed the door quietly, without disturbing the flow of speech.
Faster, faster. Oh, that violin. Again, the twenty-fourth caprice, well, did you go further?! Already some of the variations in the middle.
When approaching the second floor, the sounds from the rooms came to life in the form of a frenzied crowd trying to knock down the musician. Bulwig had never heard such shouts of chaos, screams of the copper, and, covering his ears, he literally flew through this nightmare, almost ran into the reception, and after running to the middle of the lobby, stopped with his ears slightly open.
... No nightmare, just a quiet harmony of classes. No, it's still better to leave, Bulwig thought, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The wardrobe was closed. The guard was asleep.
... The door appeared to be open. Bulwig went out and blissfully breathed in the fresh evening air. The door closed softly. The musician looked around and lightly tried the handle. The college was closed.
The windows of the second and third floors were dark. The glowing lobby of the first floor began to fade as it moved away and sank into impenetrability, which did not change when approaching. Bulwig looked gratefully at the building that had so kindly revealed its secrets to him. Or maybe it was he who had cheekily sneaked into them?!
This time there was peace. There was almost no sound, only like on the second floor, somewhere there out of the darkness...
Only the violinist was finishing with playing the twenty-fourth caprice, a passage, followed by another passage and then the last passage in which the last wave of despair was invested, dot - chord.
...Then everything went quiet...
everything...
and then neverβ¦
...
In the evening of the next day, after going out into the fresh air after practicing, Bulwig felt somewhat uncomfortable. The dark sky bent sadly and sorrowfully over the streets, crying with a slow, cool rain. The musician looked around and peered piercingly at the lofty facade of the building. There was nothing this evening, but he remembered the secret. The lanterns gloomily illumined the evening lane passing which Bulwig was puzzled not to meet a single passerby and not a single motorist. Everything froze yielding rights to the crying of nature. At the bus stop surrounded by the desolate blackness someone's silhouette was visible. Rather out of habit, quickly running across the street, Bulwig slowly began to approach the bus stop. Upon arrival, he looked incredulously at the lonely man. After he came as close as possible while still maintaining a decent distance, Bulwig's entire soul literally froze in the suffocating cold instantly and desperately pinning him to the ground.
There was a violinist at the bus stop. In black shoes, trousers, raincoat, he stood with his head lowered. His face was not visible, but it was obvious that he was no longer waiting for anything. His figure seemed to be motionless. In his right hand, as part of the black incarnation, there was a black case. The rain drops did not seem to touch the violinist, but to envelop his silhouette. Bulwig felt unbearably creepy but he still decided to wait for the bus and, squeezing his whole heart into steel bars, peered with horror into the darkness of the street for the violinist was constantly in sight. Bulwig was also wary of looking around, and to leave turning his back to the ghost would already be an unbearable mental test. It remained to wait and look, at least not at the violinist, but near him, constantly keeping him into view. The rain continued its unhurried complaint, the lantern dimly and confusingly with occasional crackling illuminating the stop. Somewhere to the side it seemed to Bulwig that some animal had passed, maybe a cat, that had passed by a lantern and disappeared into the dark.
Suddenly, the violinist's figure trembled. Bulwig stepped back in horror. The ghost straightened up as the monument turned its back and slowly headed into the depths of the street, soon it disappeared into impenetrable blackness. Bulwig sighed, feeling not only drops of natural moisture on his forehead, but also of his own sweat.
About eight minutes later the bus arrived...
Written and translated from Russian by Β© Jaroslav Novosyolov (jaroslavnovosyolov.de)