Unaccompanied Sonata

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2024-11-23 0 0 28.81KB 12 页 5.9玖币

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UNACCOMPANIED SONATA

by Orson Scott Card

When Christian Haroldsen was six months old, preliminary tests showed a predisposition toward

rhythm and a keen awareness of pitch. There were other tests, of course, and many possible routes

still open to him. But rhythm and pitch were the governing signs of his own private zodiac, and

already the reinforcement began. Mr. and Mrs. Haroldsen were provided with tapes of many kinds

of sound and instructed to play them constantly, whether Christian was awake or asleep.

When Christian Haroldsen was two years old, his seventh battery of tests pinpointed the path he

would inevitably follow. His creativity was exceptional; his curiosity, insatiable; his understanding

of music, so intense that on top of all the tests was written "Prodigy."

Prodigy was the word that took him from his parents' home to a house in deep deciduous forests

where winter was savage and violent and summer, a brief, desperate eruption of green. He grew up,

cared for by unsinging servants, and the only music he was allowed to hear was bird song and

wind song and the crackling of winter wood; thunder and the faint cry of golden leaves as they

broke free and tumbled to the earth; rain on the roof and the drip of water from icicles; the chatter

of squirrels and the deep silence of snow falling on a moonless night.

These sounds were Christian's only conscious music. He grew up with the symphonies of his early

years only distant and impossible-to-retrieve memories. And so he learned to hear music in

unmusical things-for he had to find music, even when there was none to find.

He found that colors made sounds in his mind: Sunlight in summer was a blaring chord; moonlight

in winter a thin, mournful wail; new green in spring, a low murmur in almost (but not quite)

random rhythms; the flash of a red fox in the leaves, a gasp of sudden startlement.

And he learned to play all those sounds on his Instrument. In the world were violins, trumpets, and

clarinets, as there had been for centuries. Christian knew nothing of that. Only his Instrument was

available. It was enough.

Christian lived in one room in his house, which he had to himself most of the time. He had a bed

(not too soft), a chair and table, a silent machine that cleaned him and his clothing, and an electric

light.

The other room contained only his Instrument. It was a console with many keys and strips and

levers and bars, and when he touched any part of it; a sound came out. Every key made a different

sound; every point on the strips made a different pitch; every lever modified the tone; every bar

altered the structure of the sound.

When he first came to the house, Christian played (as children will) with the Instrument, making

strange and funny noises. It was his only playmate; he learned it well, could produce any sound he

wanted to. At first he delighted in loud, blaring tones. Later he began to learn the pleasure of

silences and rhythms. And soon he began to play with soft and loud and to play two sounds at once

and to change those two sounds together to make a new sound and to play

again a sequence of sounds he had played before.

Gradually, the sounds of the forest outside his house found their way into the music he played. He

learned to make winds sing through his instrument; he learned to make summer one of the songs he

could play at will. Green with its infinite variations was his most subtle harmony; the birds cried

out from his Instrument with all the passion of Christian's loneliness.

And the word spread to the licensed Listeners:

"There's a new sound north of here, east of here: Christian Haroldsen, and he'll tear out your heart

with his songs."

The Listeners came, a few to whom variety was everything first, then those to whom novelty and

vogue mattered most, and at last those who valued beauty and passion above everything else. They

came and stayed out in Christian's woods and listened as his music was played through perfect

speakers on the roof of his house. When the music stopped and Christian came out of his house, he

could see the Listeners moving away. He asked and was told why they came; he marveled that the

things he did for love on his Instrument could be of interest to other people.

He felt, strangely, even more lonely to know that he could sing to the Listeners and yet never be

able to hear their songs.

"But they have no songs," said the woman who came to bring him food every day. "They are

Listeners. You are a Maker. You have songs, and they listen."

"Why?" asked Christian, innocently.

The woman looked puzzled. "Because that's what they want most to do. They've been tested, and

they are happiest as Listeners. You are happiest as a Maker. Aren't you happy?"

"Yes," Christian answered, and he was telling the truth. His life was perfect, and he wouldn't

change anything, not even the sweet sadness of the backs of the Listeners as they walked away at

the end of his songs.

Christian was seven years old.

FIRST MOVEMENT

For the third time the short man with glasses and a strangely inappropriate mustache dared to wait

in the underbrush for Christian to come out. For the third time he was overcome by the beauty of

the song that had just ended, a mournful symphony that made the short man with glasses feel the

pressure of the leaves above him, even though it was summer and they had months left before they

would fall. The fall was still inevitable, said Christian's song; through all their life the leaves hold

within them the power to die, and that must color their life. The short man with glasses wept-but

when the song ended and the other Listeners moved away, he hid in the brush and waited.

This time his wait was rewarded. Christian came out of his house, walked among the trees, and

came toward where the short man with glasses waited. The man admired the easy, unpostured way

that Christian walked. The composer looked to be about thirty, yet there was something childish in

the way he looked around him, the way his walk was aimless and prone to stop so he would just

touch (and not break) a fallen twig with his bare toes.

"Christian," said the short man with glasses.

Christian turned, startled. In all these years, no Listerner had ever spoken to him. It was forbidden.

Christian knew the law.

"It's forbidden," Christian said.

"Here," the short man with glasses said, holding out a small black object.

"What is it?"

The short man grimaced. "Just take it. Push the button and it plays."

"Plays?"

"Music."

Christian's eyes opened wide. "But that's forbidden. I can't have my creativity polluted by hearing

other musicians work. That would make me imitative and derivative, instead of original."

"Reciting," the man said. "You're just reciting that. This is Bach's music." There was reverence in

his voice.

"I can't," Christian said.

And then the short man shook his head. "You don't know. You don't know what you're missing. But

I heard it in your song when I came here years ago, Christian. You want this."

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Unaccompanied Sonata

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