'Not that thing,' bestowing a glance of contempt at my instrument.
'Felix, the Stradivarius.'
The young man went to the other side of the room, and returned with
the case which I had noticed. He put it in my hand, with the
injunction to handle it gently. I had never heard of Cremona violins,
nor of my namesake Stradivarius; but at the sight of the dark seasoned
wood, reposing on its blue velvet, I could not restrain a cry of
admiration.
I have that same instrument in my room now, and I would not trust it
in the hands of another for a million.
I lifted the violin tenderly from its case, and ran my bow up the
gamut.
I felt almost intoxicated at the mellow sounds it uttered. I could
have kissed the dark wood, that looked to me stained through and
through with melody.
I began to play. My improvisation was a song of triumph and delight;
the music, at first rapid and joyous, became slower and more solemn,
as the inspiration seized on me, until at last, in spite of myself, it
grew into a wild and indescribable dirge, fading away in a long wail
of unutterable sadness and regret. When it was over I felt exhausted
and unstrung, as though virtue had gone out from me. I had played as I
had never played before. The young man had turned away, and was
looking out of the window. The lady on the sofa was transfigured. The
languor had altogether left her, and the tears were streaming down her
face, to the great detriment of the powder and enamel which composed
her complexion.
She pulled me towards her, and kissed me.
'It is beautiful, terrible!' she said; 'I have never heard such
strange music in my life. You must stay with me now and have masters.
If you can play like that now, without culture and education, in time,
when you have been taught, you will be the greatest violinist that
ever lived.'
I will say of Lady Greville that, in spite of her frivolity and
affectations, she does love music at the bottom of her soul, with the
absorbing passion that in my eyes would absolve a person for
committing all the sins in the Decalogue. If her heart could be taken
out and examined I can fancy it as a shield, divided into equal
fields. Perhaps, as her friends declare, one of these might bear the
device 'Modes et Confections'; but I am sure that you would see on the
other, even more deeply graven, the divine word 'Music.'
She is one of the few persons whose praise of any of my compositions
gives me real satisfaction; and almost alone, when everybody is
running, in true goose fashion, to hear my piano recitals, she knows
and tells me to stick to my true vocation--the violin.
'My dear Baron,' she said, 'why waste your time playing on an
instrument which is not suited to you, when you have Stradivarius
waiting at home for the magic touch?'
She was right, though it is the fashion to speak of me now as a second
Rubenstein. There are two or three finer pianists than I, even here in
England. But I am quite sure, yes, and you are sure, too, oh my
Stradivarius, that in the whole world there is nobody who can make
such music out of you as I can, no one to whom you tell such stories
as you tell to me. Any one, who knows, could see by merely looking at
my hands that they are violin and not piano hands.
'Will you come and live with me, Anton?' said Lady Greville, more
calmly. 'I am rich, and childless; you shall live just as if you were
my child. The best masters in Europe shall teach you. Tell me where to
find your parents, Anton, and I will see them to-night.'
'I have no parents,' I said, 'only Ninette. I cannot leave Ninette.'
'Shade of Musset, who is Ninette?' asked Felix, turning round from the
window.