THE BIG DRUM

The brass band played Im Köpfle zwei Augle, and it seemed to her that the souls of these men were like notes of this music, crying for something elusive, for something in vain. To blare forth one’s love on a brass trumpet! An earnest of one’s high endeavour fallen short through the inadequate matter of brass; but withal in these abortive notes one felt the presence of the heights the instrument would reach, alas, if it but could!

It touched her to the heart. She would have liked her Otto to play the trumpet instead of the big drum. It seemed more romantic. Otto was not a bit romantic. He was a soldier all right, but he looked more like a man who had started life as a shoemaker’s apprentice, had grown old, and was still a shoemaker’s apprentice. The band played well—a compact synthetic body—but Otto was a forlorn figure who watched the proceedings with sustained and patient interest and was suffered by them, every now and then, to raise his drumstick and to give a solitary, judicious “Bang!” And he—a tall gaunt man—seemed as though he were ashamed of his small part. And as she watched him she felt a pang of pity for herself: wedded to him, she would be forgotten, while life, indifferent, strode by; and no one in the world would care whether she had her share of happiness before she died. And the music brought this out acutely, as if along the hard stone-paved indifference of life it dragged, dragged on excruciating its living bleeding soul. It spoke of loneliness, of laughter, of the pathos, pity and futility of life.

She watched them. The bayonets at their side. The military badges of rank. The hard discipline. And the music seemed to say, “Stop! What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” And thoughts flowed into her mind. Of soldiers dreaming on a Sunday afternoon. A fierce old corporal, of whom everyone was afraid, talking to her of children and of daisies. Soldiers who, too, had dreams in long waves—of what? she did not know—but not this. And the men who stood up and blew the brass trumpets seemed to say, and the shining trumpets themselves seemed to say: “We were not born for the Army; we were born for something better—though Heaven only knows what it is!”

That was so. Undeniably so. Yet she wished it were otherwise. It helped to make allowances for Otto. Whatever else he lacked, it made her think at least he had a soul. But to be wedded for life to the big drum! She did not fancy the idea. It didn’t seem a proper career. But Otto showed no sign of wanting to “get on”—even in the orchestra. The most exasperating thing about it all was that Otto showed no sign of even trying! She had asked him if he would not, in time, “move on” and take over—say, the double-bass. He did not seem to think it either feasible or necessary. Or necessary! He had been with the big drum for close on twelve years. “It’s a good drum,” he had said. And that was all.

There was no ... “go” in him. That was it: no go. It was no use denying it. As she watched him—gaunt and spectacled—she wished Otto were more of a man and less of an old maid. The conductor, a boozer with a fat red face full of pimples, some dead and dried up, others still flourishing, was a gallant—every inch a man. He had the elasticity and suppleness and military alertness of the continental military man. She could not tell his rank from the stripes on his sleeves, but thought he must be a major. His heels were high and tipped with indiarubber, and so were straight and smart, but his trousers lacked the footstrap to keep them in position—poor dilapidated Austrian Army! How low it had sunk! Nevertheless they were tight and narrow and showed off the major’s calves to advantage. He wore a pince-nez, but a rimless kind, through which gazed a pair of not altogether innocent eyes. But a man and a leader of men. While Otto had no rubber on his heels. His heels looked eaten away. He wore a pair of spectacles through which he peered from afar at his neighbour’s music-stand, and at the appointed time—not one-tenth of a second too late or to early—down came the drumstick with the long-awaited “Bang!” So incidental, so contemptible was Otto’s part that, in addition to handling the drum, he had to turn the pages for the man who played the cymbals. It seemed to her humiliating. It was very wrong that Otto had no music-stand of his own.

He smiled shyly, and she turned away, annoyed. The little modiste walked on, meeting the stream of people who promenaded the path surrounding the bandstand; a man on high heels, three girls with a pinched look, a famous Tyrolese basso with a long ruddy beard, a jeune premier with whiskers and hair like a wig, whose look appeared to imply: “Here am I.” Innsbruck looked morose that Sunday morning, and the military band in the park executed music that was tattered, gross, a little common, yet compelling, even like the daily fare of life. Oh, why were there no heroes? Of course she would have loved to be dominated. That’s what men were for. She was a womanly woman. From Vienna. Exalted, brimming over with life. These men of the Tyrol! And as for Otto? Why, she could have only waved her hand!

She began to wonder whether she had not really better break it off with him. If men would but realise how little was required from them. Only an outward gesture of romance: a touch sufficed, the rest would be supplied by woman’s powerful imagination. Not even so much. A mere abstention from the cruder forms of clumsiness, a surface effort to conceal one’s feeblest worst. A mere semblance of mastery, a glimpse of a will. In short, anything at all that would provide the least excuse for loving him as she so wished to do. A minute she stood, thinking. “A minimum. Hardly as much.” There passed along the man on high heels, the three girls with the pinched look, the Tyrolese basso with the long ruddy beard, the jeune premier with whiskers and hair like a wig, whose look seemed to say, “Here am I”; then again the man on high heels, the three girls with the pinched look, the Tyrolese singer, and again the “jeune premier” whose look implied, “Here am I.” They walked round and round as if the park were a cage and there was nothing to do but walk round—with heads bent, lifeless, sullenly resolute. And again there came along the man on high heels. “The minimum of a minimum....”

The music resumed. She consulted her programme. Item 7. Potpourri from the operette Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. She returned to the stand, prepared to give her fiancé another chance. Otto’s part, as before, was contemptible, more contemptible than before. He was inactive. He smiled shyly. She coloured. And, looking at him, she knew. She knew it was no use, her love could not bridge the chasm. He was despised by the rest of the band. A stick-in-the-mud. Not a man. A poor fish. Not for her....

The potpourri, as if suddenly turning the corner, broke out into a resounding march, and behold, the big drum now led the way. Bang! bang! bang! bang! Clearly he whacked, never once missing the chance; and the man with the cymbals, as if one heart and brain operated their limbs, clashed the cymbals in astounding unison, the big drum pounding away, pounding away, without cease or respite. And the trumpeters smiled, as who might say: “Good old big drum! You have come into your own at last!” Bang! bang! bang! bang! The big drum had got loud and excited. And all the people standing around looked as though a great joy had come into their lives; and if they had not been a little shy of each other they would have set out and marched in step with the music, taken up any cause and, if only because the music implied that all men were brothers, gone forth if need be and butchered another body of brothers, to the tearing, gladdening strains of the march, (since it is not known from what rational cause men could have marched to the war). And if in the park of the neighbouring town there were just such a band with just such a drum which played this same music, the people of the neighbouring town would have marched to this music and exterminated this town. The conductor, like a driver who, having urged his horse over the hill, leans back and leaves the rest to the horse, conceded the enterprise to the drummer, as if the hard, intricate work were now over and he was taking it easy; his baton moved perfunctorily in the wake of the drum, he looked round and acknowledged the greetings of friends with gay, informal salutes of the left hand, his bland smile freely admitting to all that it was no longer himself but the drum which led them to victory. Or rather, the hard fight had already been won and these, behold, were the happy results! Bang! bang! bang! bang! Strangers passed smiles of intimate recognition, old men nodded reminiscently, small boys gazed with rapt eyes, women looked sweet and bright-eyed, ready to oblige with a kiss; while the big drum, conscious of his splendid initiative, pounded away without cease or respite.

“Wonderful! Beautiful!” said the public surrounding them. And thought:

“Noise is a good thing.”

The band had described the first circle and was repeating it with added gusto and deliberation. The drum and the cymbals were pounding, pounding their due through the wholly inadequate blazing of brass. But these did not mind: “Every dog has his day”—and they followed the lead of the drum. He led them. He—Otto! Her Otto was leading them. God! Merciful Virgin! What had she done to deserve such happiness? Otto!... And she had doubted him, thought there was no “go” in him. No go! She burnt red with shame at the mere thought of it. He was all “go.” And didn’t he make them go, too, the whole lot of them? How he led them! Puffing, the sweat streaming down their purple faces, they blazed away till their cheeks seemed ready to burst, but Otto out-drummed them—annihilated their efforts. He—Otto! O, God! Watching him, people could hardly keep still. But that none of them stirred and all of them wanted to, added piquancy to the illusion of motion. They stood rooted—while the drum carried on for them: Bang! bang! bang! bang!

“Marvelous!” sighed the public around them.

Her Otto—cock of the walk! She could scarcely believe her eyes. Standing in front of the crowd, only a few paces from his side and raising herself on her toes ever so gently in rhythm with the music, so that by the very tininess of her movements she seemed to be sending added impetus into the band, as if, indeed, she were pressing with her little feet some invisible pump, she scanned his face with tenderness, in dumb adoration. And Otto at the drum must have felt it, for, at this turn, he put new life into his thundering whacks: Bang! bang! bang! bang! he toiled, and the conductor, as if divining what was afoot, at that moment accelerated the pace of the march.

“Bravo, bravo!” said the people surrounding them.

There was no doubt about it. This was Art. The unerring precision. The wonderful touch. Otto!... Otto, as never before, whacked the big drum, whacked it in excitement, in a frenzy, in transcending exaltation. Thundering bangs! And now she knew—what she couldn’t have dreamed—she knew it by his face. Otto was a hero. A leader of men. Something fluttered in her breast, as though a bird had flown in, ready to fly out.

“Now it’s all over,” thought the people, “and we are going home to lunch.” And everyone smiled and felt very happy and gay. A sort of prolonged accelerated thundering of the big drum, and then one tremendous BANG!

The thing was over. The conductor raised a bent hand to the peak of his cap, acknowledging the applause. The bird in her fluttered more wildly than ever. She wanted to cry out, but her throat would not obey. She clutched at her heaving breast with trembling fingers. “My love,” she thought. “My king! My captain!—--”