Violists, by Richard McGowan

(C)1994 Richard McGowan
San Jose, California
January 22, 1994

TEXTUAL NOTE: In this edition words of French origin in the text are spelled without their customary accent marks, due to the limitations of the ASCII medium. It is the author's intent that they be spelled with accents whenever possible (e.g., gateau, tête-à-tête).

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

"Violists" began to germinate early in December last, as Christmas approached. I originally intended that it be ready before the new year, but alas, it came in behind schedule, and was not completed until January. It is still winter in some places—the right season for such morsels—so rather than let the work languish upon the shelf for another year...

Somewhere out there on The Net, I hope there is a solitary reader settled comfortably in a warm study with a nice cup of tea. Perhaps the lights are out, and the amber glow of the terminal spreads faint warmth through the room; overstuffed bookshelves loom behind in the darkness. If the evening air is crisp and a soft snow is falling outside the window, so much the better—a view of icicles would be a magical touch.

— Richard McGowan
     San Jose, California
     January 22, 1994

VIOLISTS

by Richard McGowan
(Opus 22)

1. Gretchen in the Library
2. The Hungarian Lightbulb
3. Christmas Concert

GRETCHEN IN THE LIBRARY

In winter the interior of the university library was hardly warmer than the outside, and it was terribly drafty. The sole difference between the interior and exterior, Gretchen often remarked to herself, was that the latter received an occasional snow. The library at least was dry. On most days in the unfrequented areas—the closed stacks on the second and third floors—one could see one's breath in the middle of the afternoon. Gretchen thought it hardly the sort of climate she would have chosen for her own books. But the cost of heating such an enormous building—well, she decided she could hardly imagine so extravagant a sum. On the coldest days, she often wore two petticoats. She found the best method of staying warm, though, was to bustle as quickly as she could. Primarily, she worked in the stacks, extracting books for the library's patrons and reshelving books that had returned—and keeping the shelves in good order.

Gretchen's twenty-ninth birthday had arrived—quite too quickly—the day before, and she bustled with an excess of alacrity to relieve her mind from the brooding that had occupied her for several days. She had spent the evening alone, though she knew it did her no good to seek solitude. To accept being past her prime of life would be simpler perhaps, and productive of less anguish, than fretting over what could not be changed. She was nearly thirty, though—and she knew what lay in store for her a few years hence. She had only to look at the assistant reference librarian, Miss Sadie, to see how she herself would be in but a few more years. The thought nearly made her shudder, and if she allowed herself to think too deeply upon the matter, might have brought her to tears. Thankfully, Gretchen told herself, she could grow old among the books, where at least she had the company of great minds—or their legacy—rather than spend a life straining in a factory—or under the yoke of an old-fashioned man.

She had been estranged from her family for six years and rarely given them serious thought since fleeing Connecticut. A simple enough row it had been to start—what should she do now that she had finished university? Of course her father recommended marriage and settling into the domestic life—a pretty girl like her. Him and his antiquated ideals—a pretty girl in the kitchen, indeed! At twenty-three she had finally come to her senses and refused to marry the young man to whom she had been betrothed, no matter how well matched her father thought they were.

Her mother had frequently confided to Gretchen her views on the varied pleasures—and trials—inherent in marriage, admitting that as the years passed she found the pleasures perhaps not worth the other hardships—the outward subjugation of her own feelings and the constant deference she was required to display within the confines of that marriage, as if she had no independent mind. Gretchen had long since determined that would not be her fate. She had come to believe that no suitable man could be found, yet she remained unsatisfied. The only true regret she had about casting off her family ties was that she had disappointed her mother. It was her mother who had worked so hard, really, to see that Gretchen had an education; her father only begrudgingly went along for the sake of domestic tranquility when all efforts to dissuade her had failed.

At university Gretchen had imbibed the rarefied intellectual atmosphere with increasing eagerness and found herself drawn irresistibly up the slopes of Parnassus. She had always intended to work after completing university—and work she did, though she had difficulty making due with what employment she could find. Even a superlative education, she had learned in six years, did not buy one certain rights or reasonable wages. She hoped that she would yet see the flowering of an age that she could call an enlightened one. She might have been bitter had she higher material aspirations, but she was content with little in the way of physical comforts. Why the privilege of spending nearly all her days in the library would have been worth almost any sacrifice—what need had she of wages!

It was lamentable, she decided, that she should have to forgo marital companionship if she were to retain her individuality—for the price of her freedom was a monumental sort of loneliness that only the severest mental discipline could overcome. She had seen so many of her school friends smothered in the clutches of bad marriages, worn out beneath their husbands' heels—almost like doormats. To be truthful there were those who seemed to prosper in the state of matrimony, but she thought them few. Yet, she still had an abiding fear that she would grow old alone—and soon enough become as obdurate as Miss Sadie—a pitiable spinster with none of the finer sensibilities left to her. Was there no man, Gretchen wondered, with whom she could share her life and interests—a man with progressive ideas? Not a man that she, like a tiny moon, would orbit eternally, but one with whom she could find a state of mutual orbit. Well, she thought, something of that nature anyway. Her knowledge of astronomy was not up to the task of finding a better analogy, and she resolved to remedy that as soon as she was able. She added another volume—'something concerning the heavens' she called it—to the list of books she thought she really must read.

Gretchen bustled, thinking these thoughts, dreading her next birthday. She blew softly on a wisp of auburn hair that had somehow escaped from the green ribbon with which she tied it back that morning. Several strands had somehow got into her mouth but her arms were too full of books—heavy tomes, all—to pull them away with her fingers. She was on the verge of setting down the burden and