The infant prodigy emerges from behind a magnificent screen, which is embroidered all over with garlands in the Empire style and large, fabulous flowers. He hurriedly climbs the steps to the platform and walks into the applause, as into a bath, shivering a bit, touched by a slight shudder, and yet as into a friendly element. The boy goes to the edge of the platform, smiles as though he were about to be photographed, and thanks the audience with a small, shy, charming, and very girlish bow.
He is dressed entirely in white silk, which does not fail of its effect upon the audience. He wears a small white silk jacket of fantastic cut, with a sash beneath it, and even his shoes are of white silk. But the bare legs contrast sharply with the white silk knickers, for they are quite brown; the boy is a Greek.
His name is Bibi Saccellaphylaccas. This is really his name. No one knows of what Christian name “Bibi” may be an abbreviation or pet form, none save the impresario, and he regards it as a business secret. Bibi’s hair is smooth and black and hangs down to his shoulders. Yet it is parted sideways and held back from the small, brown, bulging forehead by means of a small silk bow. He has the most innocent, childlike face in the world, with an unformed little nose and an unsophisticated mouth; only that part of his face which lies below the coal-black, mouselike eyes is already a little weary and clearly expressive of two traits of character. He looks as though he were nine years old, but he is only eight as yet and is announced as only seven. People do not know themselves whether they really believe this. Perhaps they know better and nevertheless believe it, as they are so often wont to do. A bit of falsehood, they think, belongs to beauty. What, they think, would become of recreation and edification after the day’s work if they did not come with a bit of goodwill, and let two and two make five? And they are quite right, with that collective mind of theirs!
The infant prodigy bows until the rustle of greetings has laid itself; then he goes to the grand piano, and the people throw a final glance at the program. The first number is “Marche solennelle,” then “Rêverie,” and then “Le Hibou et les moineaux”—all by Bibi Saccellaphylaccas. The entire program is by him—these are his own compositions. He cannot, to be sure, write them down, but he has them all safe in his small, uncommon head, and they must be accorded artistic significance, as the posters prepared by the impresario attest in a sober, matter-of-fact style. It appears that the impresario has wrested this concession from his critical nature in severe struggles.
The infant prodigy sits down upon the revolving stool and angles for the pedals with his little legs. These pedals are raised much higher than usual by means of an ingenious contrivance, so that Bibi may reach them. The grand piano is his own and he takes it everywhere with him. It rests upon wooden blocks, and its polish is rather damaged by its being transported so frequently, but all that merely makes the thing more interesting.
Bibi puts his silky white feet upon the pedals; the expression of his little face grows pointed and arch; he looks straight before him and raises his right hand. It is a naive, brown, childish little hand, but the wrist is strong and not at all childish, for it reveals well-developed joints.
Bibi puts on this mien for his audience, for he knows that he must entertain it a little. But he himself, for his part, takes a quiet pleasure in the affair, a pleasure that he could not describe to anyone. It is this nervous joy, this secret thrill of bliss, which creeps through him whenever he sits down in front of the open piano—and he will never lose this feeling. Again the keys offer themselves to his fingers, these seven black and white octaves, amongst which he has so often lost himself in adventures and profoundly exciting experiences and which nevertheless appear again as pure and untouched as a drawing-slate that has been wiped off. It is music, the world of music, that lies before him! It lies outspread before him like a tempting sea and he is able to plunge in and swim about blissfully, allow himself to be borne hither and thither, let himself go down in a storm and yet keep the mastery in his hands, govern and dispose of it all.—He holds his right hand aloft.
There is a breathless stillness in the hall. It is this tension before the first chord—how will it begin? It begins thus: Bibi fetches the first tone out of the piano with his forefinger, an unexpectedly powerful tone in the middle register, resembling a trumpet-blast. Others align themselves to this, and the introduction begins—the muscles of the audience relax.
The hall is a very ornate one, situated in a first-class fashionable hotel, with paintings showing much rosy flesh upon the walls, with luxuriant pillars, mirrors with heavily decorated frames, and a vast number, a perfect solar system, of electric bulbs, which sprout forth everywhere in clusters and fill the room with a thin, golden, celestial radiance, far brighter than day.—No chair is empty; yes, people are standing even in the side aisles and at the back of the hall. In front, where the price is twelve marks (for the impresario is devoted to the principle of awe-inspiring prices), we find the members of high society; for there is a lively interest in the
