Beethoven interrupted. “Who is this Miss Haddon,” he asked, “whose name recurs like the beat of a drum?”
“She has interpreted you for many years.”
“And her orchestra?”
“They are maidens of the upper middle classes, who perform the ‘Eroica’ in her presence every day and all day. The sound of it never ceases. It floats out of the window like a continual incense, and is heard up and down the street.”
“Do they perform with insight?”
Since Beethoven is deaf, the clerk could reply, “With most intimate insight. There was a time when Ellen was further from your spirit than the rest, but that has not been the case since Dolores and Violet arrived.”
“New comrades have inspired her. I understand.”
The clerk was silent.
“I approve,” continued Beethoven, “and in token of my approval I decree that Miss Haddon and her orchestra and all in their house shall this very evening hear a perfect performance of my A minor quartette.”
While the decree was being entered, and while the staff was wondering how it would be executed, a scene of even greater splendour was taking place in another part of the empyrean. There Napoleon sat, surrounded by his clerks, who were so numerous that the thrones of the outermost looked no larger than cirrocumuli clouds. They were busy entering all the references made on earth to their employer, a task for which he himself had organized them. Every few moments he asked, “And what is our latest phase?”
The clerk whose ledger was entitled “Hommages de Wordsworth” answered: “, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and Jane, all recited the sonnet, ‘Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee.’ Dolores and Violet attempted to recite it, but failed.”
“The poet there celebrates my conquest of the Venetian Republic,” said the Emperor, “and the greatness of the theme overcame Violet and Dolores. It is natural that they should fail. And the next phase?”
Another clerk said, “, Mildred, Ellen, Rose, Enid, Margaret and Jane, are sketching in the left front leg of Pauline Bonaparte’s couch. Dolores and Violet are still learning their sonnet.”
“It seems to me,” said Napoleon, “that I have heard these charming names before.”
“They are in my ledger, too,” said a third clerk. “You may remember, sire, that about an hour ago they performed Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’—”
“Written in my honour,” concluded the Emperor. “I approve.”
“,” said a fourth clerk, “with the exception of Dolores and Violet, who have been sent to sharpen pencils, the whole company sings the ‘Marseillaise.’ ”
“It needed but that,” cried Napoleon, rising to his feet. “Ces demoiselles ont un vrai élan vers la gloire. I decree in recompense that they and all their house shall participate tomorrow morning in the victory of Austerlitz.”
The decree was entered.
Evening prep was at . The girls settled down gloomily, for they were already bored to tears by the new system. But a wonderful thing happened. A regiment of cavalry rode past the school, headed by the most spiffing band. The girls went off their heads with joy. They rose from their seats, they sang, they advanced, they danced, they pranced, they made trumpets out of paper and used the blackboard as a kettledrum. They were able to do this because Miss Haddon, who ought to have been supervising, had left the room to find a genealogical tree of Marie Louise; the history mistress had asked her particularly to take it to prep for the girls to climb about in, but she had forgotten it. “I am no good at all,” thought Miss Haddon, as she stretched out her hand for the tree; it lay with some other papers under a shell which the Principal had procured from St. Helena. “I am stupid and tired and old; I wish that I was dead.” Thus thinking, she lifted the shell mechanically to her ear; her father, who was a sailor, had often done the same to her when she was young. …
She heard the sea; at first it was the tide whispering over mud-flats or chattering against stones, or the short, crisp break of a wave on sand, or the long, echoing roar of a wave against rocks, or the sounds of the central ocean, where the waters pile themselves into mountains and part into ravines; or when fog descends, and the deep rises and falls gently; or when the air is so fresh that the big waves and the little waves that live in the big waves all sing for joy, and send one another kisses of white foam. She heard them all, but in the end she heard the sea itself, and knew that it was hers forever.
“Miss Haddon!” said the Principal. “Miss Haddon! How is it you are not supervising the girls?”
Miss Haddon removed the shell from her ear, and faced her employer with a growing determination.
“I can hear Ellen’s voice though we are at the other side of the house,” she continued. “I half thought it was the elocution hour. Put down that paperweight at once, please, Miss Haddon, and return to your duties.”
She took the shell from the music mistress’s hand, intending to place it on its proper shelf. But the force of example caused her to raise it to her own ear. She, too, listened. …
She heard the rustling of trees in a wood. It was no wood that she had ever known, but all the people she had known were riding about in it, and calling softly to each other on horns. It was night, and they were hunting. Now and then beasts rustled, and once there was an “Halloo!” and a chase, but more often her friends rode quietly, and she with them, penetrating the wood in every direction and forever.
And while she heard this with one ear, Miss Haddon was speaking as follows into the other:
“I will not return to my duties. I have neglected them ever since I came here, and once more will make little difference. I am not musical.
