Birdsong Read Free

doubt it was Beethoven if you failed to recognize it, Madame,” said Bérard gallantly. “It was one of those folksongs, I’ll bet you anything.”
    “It didn’t sound like that,” said Madame Azaire.
    “I can’t bear these folk tunes you hear so much of these days,” Bérard continued. “When I was a young man it was different. Of course, everything was different then.” He laughed with wry self-recognition. “But give me a proper melody that’s been written by one of our great composers any day. A song by Schubert or a nocturne by Chopin, something that will make the hairs of your head stand on end! The function of music is to liberate in the soul those feelings that normally we keep locked up in the heart. The great composers of the past were able to do this, but the musicians of today are satisfied with four notes in a line you can sell on a song-sheet at the street corner. Genius does not find its recognition quite as easily as that, my dear Madame Azaire!”
    Stephen watched as Madame Azaire turned her head slowly so that her eyes met those of Bérard. He saw them open wider as they focused on his smiling face, on which small drops of perspiration stood out in the still air of the dining room. How on earth, he wondered, could she be the mother of the girl and boy who had been with them at dinner?
    “I do think I should open that window,” she said coldly, and stood up with a rustle of silk skirt.
    “And you too are a musical man, Azaire?” said Bérard. “It’s a good thing to have music in a household where there are children. Madame Bérard and I always encouraged our children in their singing.”
    Stephen’s mind was racing as Bérard’s voice went on and on. There was something magnificent about the way Madame Azaire turned this absurd man aside. He was only a small-town bully, it was true, but he was clearly used to having his own way.
    “I have enjoyed evenings at the concert hall,” said Azaire modestly, “though I should hesitate to describe myself as a ‘musical man’ on account of that. I merely—”
    “Nonsense. Music is a democratic form of art. You don’t need money to buy it or education to study it. All you need is a pair of these.” Bérard took hold of his large pink ears and shook them. “Ears. The gift of God at birth. You must not be shy about yourpreference, Azaire. That can only lead to the triumph of inferior taste through the failing of false modesty.” Bérard sat back in his chair and glanced toward the now open window. The draught seemed to spoil his enjoyment of the epigram he had pretended to invent. “But forgive me, René,” he said. “I cut you off.”
    Azaire was working at his black briar pipe, tamping down the tobacco with his fingers and testing its draw by sucking noisily on it. When it was done to his satisfaction he struck a match and for a moment a blue spiral of smoke encircled his bald head. In the silence before he could reply to his friend, they heard the birds in the garden outside.
    “Patriotic songs,” said Azaire. “I have a particular fondness for them. The sound of bands playing and a thousand voices lifted together to sing the ‘Marseillaise’ as the army went off to fight the Prussians. What a day that must have been!”
    “But if you’ll forgive me,” said Bérard, “that is an example of music being used for a purpose—to instil a fighting valour in the hearts of our soldiers. When any art is put to practical ends it loses its essential purity. Am I not right, Madame Azaire?”
    “I daresay you are, Monsieur. What does Monsieur Wraysford think?”
    Stephen, momentarily startled, looked at Madame Azaire and found her eyes on his for the first time. “I have no view on that, Madame,” he said, recovering his composure. “But I think if any song can touch the heart, then one should value it.”
    Bérard suddenly held out his hand. “A little brandy, if you please, Azaire. Thank you. Now then. I am going to do something in