Satan Came to Eden by Dore Strauch

Author:Dore Strauch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1935-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

13

We Gain a Friend and Fail To Defeat an Enemy

The year 1932 was the beginning of the end, but no year could have opened more deceptively. The 3rd of January brought us a friend whom I shall remember all my life with gratitude. The American yacht Velero III came to Floreana, commanded by its owner, Captain Hancock, the explorer, who invited us aboard. Unlike most of the visitors to the island, these came to us at Friedo immediately upon their arrival – usually interest in us was incidental, which we sometimes preferred, for it was not to everybody we felt inclined to show our place. Except for Commander McDonald, no one who came cruising to the island showed such sympathetic or intelligent interest in our purpose and ideas as Captain Hancock. In him we found that openness of mind and freedom from prejudice and preconceived ideas, as well as that respect for other people’s sincerities, which are among the most likable traits of the Americans. These men, we felt, did not regard us as something escaped from a psychological zoo, but were capable of dissociating what we really were from all the outward peculiarity of our situation. With them alone, of all the kind and interested men and women we met, we felt that we could really talk of our ideas, with the perfect assurance that we were speaking a language they could understand.

When Captain Hancock asked us to the yacht, he did not mention the treat he had in store for us, but I shall never forget the extraordinary and moving impression of that evening – for there was music. Captain Hancock turned out to be an accomplished cellist. He played on an instrument whose tone had the most extraordinary beauty I had ever heard. Some one told us afterwards that it was a Gagliano, a priceless example of its kind. There was a young Russian violin virtuoso, and another member of the group of scientists on board played the piano accompaniments. It is very difficult for dwellers in the civilized world today, with the phonograph and radio bringing music continuously into their very houses, to realize what years without music can mean. I myself had not been conscious of how much I missed it until I heard again the works of those composers with whom all Germans grow up from childhood and whose genius plays so large a part in every German’s cultural life. As we sat listening to Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, I lost all consciousness of my surroundings, and hardly came back to earth when the rich sounds themselves had died away. It was not that the music made me feel homesick – that is, not for Europe or for the scenes and people with whom it was associated in my mind – but it was as though it led me back into a landscape that was home to me, where I knew everything, and met again many a joy that I had greatly cherished.

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