The Violist

Part III In His Debt

Part III In His Debt

Juliette woke up to see the sun barely peaking up above the horizon. A wide grin crept onto her face as she recalled when her father and her used to wake up to watch the sunrise right before he would leave for a tour. She missed the simpler days when she had a mother and little responsibility.

The violist's moment of reminiscence was cut short as she remembered her lesson with the Opéra owner. She was supposed to be in his office before the sun rose. She did not wish to see her father's disappointment if he heard of her tardiness for such an occasion and she certainly did not look forward to Monsieur Destler's, no doubt negative, reaction to her lateness.

Without much thought, she threw on a dress and grabbed her viola case, nearly sprinting to the masked man's quarters. Before knocking on the door, she ran her fingers through her knotted hair in attempt to brush it. Her fingers became caught in the brown nest, leaving her no choice but to rip out her fingers and hope she did not look homeless.

"Enter," the man's velvety, yet stern voice called from inside. She pushed open the door and closed it behind her, curious as to how he knew she was there when she had yet to knock. "You're panting like a dog. I could hear you as soon as you turned into the hallway."

Juliette felt the heat in her cheeks rise as she became consciously aware of her breathing. With as much composure as she could muster, she greeted him with a curtsy. "Bonjour, Monsieur Destler."

He stood from behind his desk. "You're late."

Her feeble hope that he would not notice disappeared. "Je suis désolée, Monsieur. I overslept."

"That sounds like an excuse," he snapped.

Juliette never understood when people said that to her. Yes, it was an excuse and also an explanation. She was not evading responsibility, simply stating what occurred. "That's because it is, Monsieur."

Erik raised an eyebrow, unamused by the girl's attitude. "A rather pathetic one. Do not be late again. Are we clear, Chevalier?"

She felt herself shrink under his glare. "Oui, bien sûr, Monsieur."

"Come, stand there." He pointed to a spot on the floor next to the piano bench. There was a music stand and chair, however he did not instruct her to sit, so she did not. "Can you play without an instrument?"

"Pardon, Monsieur?"

"Take out your viola," he ordered, obviously irritated.

She felt idiotic as she hurried to take her viola out of the case. The force of his glare made her feel unbalanced as she quickly tuned her instrument and adjusted the bow hair. Just as last time, he tore the viola from her grasp and finished tuning it for her.

"Are you tone deaf, girl?" he scowled. He shoved the instrument back into her arms.

"I'm sorry, Monsieur Destler. I was never the best at tuning."

"Obviously," he spat. He ordered her to play a few scales, adding some vibrato to a couple of the notes as well. It seemed as if she could do nothing correctly in his eyes. He barked more demoralizing instructions at her such as, "Do you have a spinal deformity? No, you do not so stand straight" and "You're lack of finger calluses tell me that you do not practice enough. Has my generosity caused me to hire a languid musician?"

While none of his comments directly targeted her gender, she could not help but to feel as if she was being hounded so harshly because of it.  He firmly gripped her wrist that was supporting the neck of the viola, rather aggressively yanking it to a slightly different position before ordering her to continue the scales which she had been repeating for at least half of an hour.