Michael

Michael by E.F. Benson (1907)

Michael Comber, the heir to Lord Ashbridge, is a short, heavy, physically awkward young Guards officer who lives in the shadow of his cousin Francis Comber, a graceful, popular, and easygoing young man whose debts Michael has just paid off. Sensitive about his appearance and painfully shy with everyone except Francis, Michael reveals that he has resigned his commission in order to devote himself to music, which he loves more than anything else, rather than continue a soldiering career he finds meaningless and for which he feels himself unsuited. He also reflects on his family's expectation that he marry a "suitable" girl and become the next Lord Ashbridge, a role he feels Francis would fill far better than he does. Michael travels to the family seat, Ashbridge, to face his father. Lord Ashbridge is a pompous, self-important nobleman utterly devoted to convention, class, and the dignity of his position, who cannot conceive of music as anything but an idle diversion. His wife, Lady Ashbridge, is vague and largely absorbed in her pug, Petsy. Michael's outspoken, humorous Aunt Barbara, married to the American Anthony Jerome, arrives with her huge dog Og and champions Michael's decision, mocking her brother's pomposity while urging Michael to stop taking himself so seriously and to stop envying Francis. Michael and his father clash directly: Lord Ashbridge lectures him on duty, caste, and patriotism, tries to browbeat him into withdrawing his resignation, and hints at disinheriting him, but Michael, though respectful and pained by the rift, refuses to yield, and father and son part in unresolved estrangement. Travelling to the Baireuth festival, Michael shares a train compartment with Hermann Falbe, a young pianist and teacher whose sister, Sylvia Falbe, is a singer Michael had recently heard and admired at a London recital. Falbe's openness and warmth draw the reserved Michael out of his habitual shyness for the first time, and over days of attending Parsifal and Meistersinger and rambling together in the countryside, the two become close friends. Falbe voices passionate, sometimes startling reflections on German patriotism, discipline, and readiness for war under the Kaiser, contrasted with what he sees as English complacency and love of amusement. Michael confides in Falbe his family history and his break with his father—something he had never done with anyone but Francis—and invites Falbe to accompany him afterward to Munich. After testing Michael's playing on an old, half-broken piano, Falbe agrees to take him on as a pupil, recognizing real musical feeling beneath Michael's inexperience. In Munich, Michael takes luxurious rooms for them both and they attend Tristan und Isolde, at which the visiting Kaiser, recognizing Michael as Lord Ashbridge's son, summons him to his box and questions him closely and cordially about England—its politics, navy, and internal troubles—before Michael returns, disgruntled at having missed much of the opera, to find Falbe eager for every detail of the encounter, reverent toward the Emperor as the embodiment of Germany. Back in London that autumn, Michael studies piano intensively under Falbe's unconventional teaching, which stresses total accuracy and reading music fluently rather than mechanical exercises. He becomes a regular presence in the informal, artistic Falbe household in Maidstone Crescent, presided over nominally by the family's dreamy, novel-reading mother, and enlivened by boisterous Sunday gatherings of musicians and actors. There Michael finds, for the first time, an environment where he feels wholly at ease, including in his growing, still-unacknowledged closeness to Sylvia, for whom he composes and dedicates a set of piano Variations that Falbe praises highly and plans to perform at his own concert. Michael's mother summons him to Ashbridge for Christmas under an uneasy truce with his father, who has otherwise ignored his letters. Aunt Barbara, invited to dine with Michael in London and expecting eccentric, bohemian musical friends, is startled to meet the elegant, socially accomplished Hermann and Sylvia Falbe. Over dinner she observes Michael's new ease and, watching him with Sylvia, privately concludes that he is falling in love with her, though probably without yet realizing it himself. When Michael recounts his encounter with the Kaiser at Munich and the Emperor's effusive friendliness toward England, Aunt Barbara turns unusually serious, warning Michael that Germany's professions of friendship mask systematic espionage and preparation for war, citing German toasts to "Der Tag," suspicious photography of English defenses, German funding of Irish agitation, and her fear that England remains dangerously unprepared and asleep to the coming European peril.

By E.F. Benson · First published 1907 · Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Inspirational · 17 chapters · 125,273 words

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Though there was nothing visibly graceful about Michael Comber, he apparently had the art of giving gracefully. He had already told his cousin Francis, who sat on the arm of the sofa by his table, that there was no earthly excuse for his having run into debt; but now when the moment came for giving, he wrote the cheque quickly and eagerly, as if thoroughly enjoying it, and passed it over to him with a smile that was extraordinarily pleasant.

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friendship · love · identity · self-discovery · society · class · romance · drama · conflict · betrayal · loyalty · family

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