Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer alone--forms were seated at the tables on the fixed dining-chairs, though there was no meal but his music; and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other fellow-passengers entered into his consciousness, some standing about, others hovering on the stairs, and still others stealing in on reverent tip-toe and taking favourable seats. His breast filled with bitter satisfaction.
So they had to come, the arrogant Americans; they had to swarm like rats to the pied piper. He could draw them at will, the haughty heathen--draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of ivory. Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through the corner of his eye he espied the figures drifting in from the corridors, peering in spellbound at the doors.
With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his morbid mood, and plunged into Scarlatti's Sonata in A, his fingers frolicking all over the board, bent on a dominating exhibition of technique. As he stopped, there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave a masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head in dazed bewilderment. Was he not then alone? '_Gott im Himmel!_' he murmured, and, furiously banging down the piano-lid, stalked from these presumptuous mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy.
But the next afternoon found him again at the public piano, devoting all the magic of his genius to charming a contemptible Christendom. He gave them Beethoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled to them the vast treasures of his art and memory. And very soon, lo! the Christian rats were pattering back again, only more wisely and cautiously. They came crawling from every part of the ship's compass. Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from applause. In vain. An enraptured greenhorn shouted 'Encore!' The musician awoke from his trance, stared dreamily at the Philistines; then, as the presence of listeners registered itself upon his expressive countenance, he rose again--but this time as more in sorrow than in anger--and stalked sublimely up the swarming stairs.
It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to warn all comers as to the habits of the great unknown, who could only beat his music out if he imagined himself unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon advance upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was passed to the little army of music-lovers. Silently the rats gathered, scurrying in on noiseless paws, stealing into the chairs, swarming about the doorways, pricking up their ears in the corridors. And through the awful hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-oblivion till the day began to wane, and the stewards to appear with the tea-cups.