They were followed by about ten dark, beetle-browed males, who carried
guitars.
These were the famous Bohemians! Their appearance at all events was
disillusioning enough. Tamara's disappointment was immense.
But presently when they began to sing she realized that there was
something--something in their music--even though it was of an intense
unrest.
She found it was the custom for them to sing a weird chant song on the
name of each guest, and every one must drink to this guest's health,
all standing, and quaffing the glasses of champagne down at one
draught.
That they all remained sober at the end of the evening seemed to do
great credit to their heads, for Tamara, completely unaccustomed to the
smoke and the warm room, feared even to sip at her glass.
The toasting over, every one sat down, Prince Milaslávski and a Pole
being the only two in front of the table, and they with immense spirit
chaffed the company, and called the tunes.
The music was of the most wild, a queer metallic sound, and the airs
were full of unexpected harmonies and nerve-racking chords. It fired
the sense, in spite of the hideous singers.
They all sat there with perfectly immovable faces and entirely still
hands,--singing without gesticulations what were evidently passionate
love-songs! Nothing could have been more incongruous or grotesque!
But the fascination of it grew and grew. Every one of their ugly faces
remained printed on Tamara's brain. Long afterward she would see them
in dreams.
How little we yet know of the force of sounds! How little we know of
any of the great currents which affect the world and human life!
And music above any other art stirs the sense. Probably the Greek myth
of Orpheus and his lute was not a myth after all; perhaps Orpheus had
mastered the occult knowledge of this great power. Surely it would be
worth some learned scientist's while to investigate from a
psychological point of view how it is, and why it is, that certain
chords cause certain emotions, and give base or elevating visions to
human souls.
The music of these gipsies was of the devil, it seemed to Tamara, and
she was not surprised at the wild look in Prince Milaslávski's eyes,
for she herself--she, well brought up, conventionally crushed English
Tamara,--felt a strange quickening of the pulse.
After an hour or so of this music, two of the younger Bohemian women
began to dance, not in the least with the movements that had shocked
Mrs. Hardcastle in the Alexandrian troupe on the ship, but a foolish
valsing, while the shoulders rose and fell and quivered like the
flapping wings of some bird. The shoulders seemed the talented part,
not the body or hips.