"_He_ can have that," and he pointed at Thrond.
"Use it as well as _he_ who is now lying _here_," added the other
stranger, pointing at the large box.
Then they both laughed and went on. Thrond looked at the little box
which thus came into his possession.
"What is there in it?" asked he.
"Carry it in and find out," said the mother.
He did as he was told, but his mother helped him open it. Then a great
joy lighted up his face, for he saw something very light and fine lying
there.
"Take it up," said his mother.
He put just one finger down on it, but quickly drew it back again in
great alarm.
"It cries," said he.
"Have courage," said his mother, and he grasped it with his whole hand
and drew it forth from the box.
He weighed it and turned it round, he laughed and felt of it.
"Dear me! what is it?" asked he, for it was as light as a toy.
"It is a fiddle."
This was the way that Thrond Alfson got his first violin.
The father could play a little, and he taught the boy how to handle the
instrument; the mother could sing the tunes she remembered from her
dancing days, and these the boy learned, but soon began to make new ones
for himself. He played all the time he was not at his books; he played
until his father once told him he was fading away before his eyes. All
the boy had read and heard until that time was put into the fiddle. The
tender, delicate string was his mother; the one that lay close beside
it, and always accompanied his mother, was Ragnhild. The coarse string,
which he seldom ventured to play on, was his father. But of the last
solemn string he was half afraid, and he gave no name to it. When he
played a wrong note on the E string, it was the cat; but when he took a
wrong note on his father's string, it was the ox. The bow was Blessom,
who drove from Copenhagen to Vaage in one night. And every tune he
played represented something. The one containing the long solemn tones
was his mother in her black dress. The one that jerked and skipped was
like Moses, who stuttered and smote the rock with his staff. The one
that had to be played quietly, with the bow moving lightly over the
strings, was the hulder in yonder fog, calling together her cattle,
where no one but herself could see.
But the music wafted him onward over the mountains, and a great yearning
took possession of his soul. One day, when his father told about a
little boy who had been playing at the fair and who had earned a great
deal of money, Thrond waited for his mother in the kitchen and asked her
softly if he could not go to the fair and play for people.
"Whoever heard of such a thing!" said his mother; but she immediately
spoke to his father about it.
"He will get out into the world soon enough," answered the father; and
he spoke in such a way that the mother did not ask again.
Shortly after this, the father and mother were talking at table about
some new settlers who had recently moved up on the mountain and were
about to be married. They had no fiddler for the wedding, the father
said.
"Could not I be the fiddler?" whispered the boy, when he was alone in
the kitchen once more with his mother.
"What, a little boy like you?" said she; but she went out to the barn
where his father was and told him about it.
"He has never been in the parish," she added; "he has never seen a
church."
"I should not think you would ask about such things," said Alf; but
neither did he say anything more, and so the mother thought she had
permission. Consequently she went over to the new settlers and offered
the boy's services.
"The way he plays," said she, "no little boy has ever played before;"
and the boy was to be allowed to come.
What joy there was at home! Thrond played from morning until evening and
practised new tunes; at night he dreamed about them: they bore him far
over the hills, away to foreign lands, as though he were afloat on
sailing clouds. His mother made a new suit of clothes for him; but his
father would not take part in what was going on.
The last night he did not sleep, but thought out a new tune about the
church which he had never seen. He was up early in the morning, and so
was his mother, in order to get him his breakfast, but he could not eat.
He put on his new clothes and took his fiddle in his hand, and it seemed
to him as though a bright light were glowing before his eyes. His mother
accompanied him out on the flag-stone, and stood watching him as he
ascended the slopes; it was the first time he had left home.
His father got quietly out of bed, and walked to the window; he stood
there, following the boy with his eyes until he heard the mother out on
the flag-stone, then he went back to bed and was lying down when she
came in.
She kept stirring about him, as if she wanted to relieve her mind of
something. And finally it came out,--
"I really think I must walk down to the church and see how things are
going."
He made no reply, and therefore she considered the matter settled,
dressed herself, and started.
It was a glorious, sunny day, the boy walked rapidly onward, he listened
to the song of the birds and saw the sun glittering among the foliage,
while he proceeded on his way, with his fiddle under his arm. And when
he reached the bride's house, he was still so occupied with his own
thoughts, that he observed neither the bridal splendor nor the
procession; he merely asked if they were about to start, and learned
that they were. He walked on in advance with his fiddle, and he played
the whole morning into it, and the tones he produced resounded through
the trees.
"Will we soon see the church?" he asked over his shoulder.
For a long time he received only "No" for an answer, but at last some
one said,--
"As soon as you reach that crag yonder, you will see it."
He threw his newest tune into the fiddle, the bow danced on the strings,
and he kept his eyes fixed intently before him. There lay the parish
right in front of him!
The first thing he saw was a little light mist, curling like smoke on
the opposite mountain side. His eyes wandered over the green meadow and
the large houses, with windows which glistened beneath the scorching
rays of the sun, like the glacier on a winter's day. The houses kept
increasing in size, the windows in number, and here on one side of him
lay the enormous red house, in front of which horses were tied; little
children were playing on a hill, dogs were sitting watching them. But
everywhere there penetrated a long, heavy tone, that shook him from head
to foot, and everything he saw seemed to vibrate with that tone. Then
suddenly he saw a large, straight house, with a tall, glittering staff
reaching up to the skies. And below, a hundred windows blazed, so that
the house seemed to be enveloped in flames. This must be the church, the
boy thought, and the music must come from it! Round about stood a vast
multitude of people, and they all looked alike! He put them forthwith
into relations with the church, and thus acquired a respect mingled with
awe for the smallest child he saw.
"Now I must play," thought Thrond, and tried to do so.
But what was this? The fiddle had no longer any sound in it. There must
be some defect in the strings; he examined, but could find none.
"Then it must be because I do not press on hard enough," and he drew his
bow with a firmer hand; but the fiddle seemed as if it were cracked.
He changed the tune that was meant to represent the church into
another, but with equally bad results; no music was produced, only
squeaking and wailing. He felt the cold sweat start out over his face;
he thought of all these wise people who were standing here and perhaps
laughing him to scorn, this boy who at home could play so beautifully,
but who here failed to bring out a single tone!
"Thank God that mother is not here to see my shame!" said he softly to
himself, as he played among the people; but lo! there she stood, in her
black dress, and she shrank farther and farther away.
At that moment he beheld far up on the spire the black-haired man who
had given him the fiddle. "Give it back to me," he now shouted,
laughing, and stretching out his arms, and the spire went up and down
with him, up and down. But the boy took the fiddle under one arm,
screaming, "You shall not have it!" and, turning, ran away from the
people, beyond the houses, onward through meadow and field, until his
strength forsook him, and then sank to the ground.
There he lay for a long time, with his face toward the earth, and when
finally he looked round he saw and heard only God's infinite blue sky
that floated above him, with its everlasting sough. This was so terrible
to him that he had to turn his face to the ground again. When he raised
his head once more his eyes fell on his fiddle, which lay at his side.
"This is all your fault!" shouted the boy, and seized the instrument
with the intention of dashing it to pieces, but hesitated as he looked
at it.
"We have had many a happy hour together," said he, then paused.
Presently he said, "The strings must be severed, for they are
worthless." And he took out a knife and cut. "Oh!" cried the E string,
in a short, pained tone. The boy cut. "Oh!" wailed the next, but the boy
cut. "Oh!" said the third, mournfully; and he paused at the fourth. A
sharp pain seized him; that fourth string, to which he never dared give
a name, he did not cut. Now a feeling came over him that it was not the
fault of the strings that he was unable to play, and just then he saw
his mother walking slowly up the slope toward where he was lying, that
she might take him home with her. A greater fright than ever overcame
him; he held the fiddle by the severed strings, sprang to his feet, and
shouted down to her,--
"No, mother! I will not go home again until I can play what I have seen
to-day."
_Contributed by An Oriental Traveller._
"A great, long devil of a Spahi in his red burnous."
_Daudet._