Read Online Mr. Fortune by Sylvia Townsend Warner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sylvia Townsend Warner
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long and seemed so busy or why it suddenly made up its mind that the time had come for a longer flight, for a flight that dismisses it from our vision.
To tell the truth, Mr. Fortune was not as much impressed by Lueliâs music as Lueli was by his. His chin even sank further into his chest as he sat, his listening flesh was unmoved, and he never felt the least impulse to howl. Mr. Fortune, in spite of his superior accomplishments, his cultivated taste, and enough grasp of musical theory to be able to transpose any hymn into its nearly related keys, was not so truly musical as Lueli. For instance, he never had the least idea whether Lueliâs tunes were lively or sad. They all seemed alike to him. But Lueli learnt almost immediately to distinguish between a march and a sentimental piece, and as the harmonies grew more and more passionate his chin would lift higher, his mouth would contract, and the shadow of his long eyelashes would shorten up over his cheek.
It would have been pleasant if the two musicians could have joined forces. Mr. Fortune by listening very often and pretty intently to Lueliâs rambling tunes was able to memorise two of themâas he believed, perfectly. Sending Lueli down to the village he spent an afternoon practising these two melodies on the harmonium and putting in a part for the left hand. It would make an agreeable surprise for his boy, he thought, to hear his tunes played by some one else; and then with Lueli playing his pipe whilst he supported the melody with chords and figurations they could achieve a duet. But the surprise fell quite flat; perhaps Mr. Fortuneâs European harmonies queered the pitch, perhaps he had misunderstood the time-values; in any case Lueli showed no signs of recognising the tunes, and even when their identity was pointed out to him he seemed doubtful. As for the duet plan it was not feasible, for the harmonium was tuned to the mean tone temperament and Lueliâs pipe obeyed some unscientific native scale; either alone sounded all right, but in conjunction they were painfully discordant.
Finding it impossible to convert Lueliâs pipe, Mr. Fortune next essayed to train his voice to Christian behaviour. In this he was more successful; Lueliâs voice was of a nondescript newly broken timbre. He couldnât always control it, and Mr. Fortune had to smoke his pipe very hard in order not to laugh at the conjunction of Lueliâs expression, so determined in well-doing, and the vagaries of his voice wandering from the straight path and ricochetting from note to note.
He also taught him to whistle, or tried to, for he was rather shocked at the idea of a boy not knowing how to whistle, explaining to him beforehand the secular nature of the act, and forbidding him to whistle tunes that had any especially sacred associations. But though Lueli screwed up his lips and almost burst himself taking in breath his whistling remained of a very girlish incompetent kind. On the other hand he showed an immediate aptitude for the vulgar kind of whistling which is done with a blade of grass. The first hearing of this was one of the pleasantest surprises that his pastor gave him. He mastered the technique in a few minutes and raced off to show the new accomplishment to his friends in the village. The fashion caught on like wildfire, and soon every boy on the island was looking for the proper blades of grass, which are called squeakers. The woods rang with their performances, and the parrots looked down with awe and astonishment at hearing men producing sounds so much more ear-splitting than anything they could achieve themselves.
The fashion raged like wildfire, and like wildfire burnt itself out. The groves were peaceful again, that is to say peaceful as any groves can be with parrots in them (not that the reader should suppose that the parrots at Fanua were like the parrots in the Zoological Gardens: oppression makes them much noisier); and every one was out
To tell the truth, Mr. Fortune was not as much impressed by Lueliâs music as Lueli was by his. His chin even sank further into his chest as he sat, his listening flesh was unmoved, and he never felt the least impulse to howl. Mr. Fortune, in spite of his superior accomplishments, his cultivated taste, and enough grasp of musical theory to be able to transpose any hymn into its nearly related keys, was not so truly musical as Lueli. For instance, he never had the least idea whether Lueliâs tunes were lively or sad. They all seemed alike to him. But Lueli learnt almost immediately to distinguish between a march and a sentimental piece, and as the harmonies grew more and more passionate his chin would lift higher, his mouth would contract, and the shadow of his long eyelashes would shorten up over his cheek.
It would have been pleasant if the two musicians could have joined forces. Mr. Fortune by listening very often and pretty intently to Lueliâs rambling tunes was able to memorise two of themâas he believed, perfectly. Sending Lueli down to the village he spent an afternoon practising these two melodies on the harmonium and putting in a part for the left hand. It would make an agreeable surprise for his boy, he thought, to hear his tunes played by some one else; and then with Lueli playing his pipe whilst he supported the melody with chords and figurations they could achieve a duet. But the surprise fell quite flat; perhaps Mr. Fortuneâs European harmonies queered the pitch, perhaps he had misunderstood the time-values; in any case Lueli showed no signs of recognising the tunes, and even when their identity was pointed out to him he seemed doubtful. As for the duet plan it was not feasible, for the harmonium was tuned to the mean tone temperament and Lueliâs pipe obeyed some unscientific native scale; either alone sounded all right, but in conjunction they were painfully discordant.
Finding it impossible to convert Lueliâs pipe, Mr. Fortune next essayed to train his voice to Christian behaviour. In this he was more successful; Lueliâs voice was of a nondescript newly broken timbre. He couldnât always control it, and Mr. Fortune had to smoke his pipe very hard in order not to laugh at the conjunction of Lueliâs expression, so determined in well-doing, and the vagaries of his voice wandering from the straight path and ricochetting from note to note.
He also taught him to whistle, or tried to, for he was rather shocked at the idea of a boy not knowing how to whistle, explaining to him beforehand the secular nature of the act, and forbidding him to whistle tunes that had any especially sacred associations. But though Lueli screwed up his lips and almost burst himself taking in breath his whistling remained of a very girlish incompetent kind. On the other hand he showed an immediate aptitude for the vulgar kind of whistling which is done with a blade of grass. The first hearing of this was one of the pleasantest surprises that his pastor gave him. He mastered the technique in a few minutes and raced off to show the new accomplishment to his friends in the village. The fashion caught on like wildfire, and soon every boy on the island was looking for the proper blades of grass, which are called squeakers. The woods rang with their performances, and the parrots looked down with awe and astonishment at hearing men producing sounds so much more ear-splitting than anything they could achieve themselves.
The fashion raged like wildfire, and like wildfire burnt itself out. The groves were peaceful again, that is to say peaceful as any groves can be with parrots in them (not that the reader should suppose that the parrots at Fanua were like the parrots in the Zoological Gardens: oppression makes them much noisier); and every one was out
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