was denounced as one who got his best inspirations from the Evil One,
with whom he was, it was said, in regular league. This accusation
was, of course, due to the almost magical impression he produced upon
his audiences. His inspired performance on the violin secured for him
in his native country the title of “Master of Nations.” The _Sonate
du Diable_, also called “Tartini’s Dream”—as everyone who has heard
it will be ready to testify—is the most weird melody ever heard or
invented: hence, the marvelous composition has become the source of
endless legends. Nor were they entirely baseless, since it was he,
himself, who was shown to have originated them. Tartini confessed to
having written it on awakening from a dream, in which he had heard his
sonata performed by Satan, for his benefit, and in consequence of a
bargain made with his infernal majesty.
Several famous singers, even, whose exceptional voices struck the
hearers with superstitious admiration, have not escaped a like
accusation. Pasta’s splendid voice was attributed in her day to the
fact that, three months before her birth, the diva’s mother was carried
during a trance to heaven, and there treated to a vocal concert of
seraphs. Malibran was indebted for her voice to St. Cecelia, while
others said she owed it to a demon who watched over her cradle and sung
the baby to sleep. Finally, Paganini—the unrivaled performer, the mean
Italian, who like Dryden’s Jubal striking on the “chorded shell” forced
the throngs that followed him to worship the divine sounds produced,
and made people say that “less than a God could not dwell within the
hollow of his violin”—Paganini left a legend too.
The almost supernatural art of the greatest violin player that the
world has ever known was often speculated upon, never understood.
The effect produced by him on his audience was literally marvelous,
overpowering. The great Rossini is said to have wept like a sentimental
German maiden on hearing him play for the first time. The Princess
Elisa of Lucca, a sister of the great Napoleon, in whose service
Paganini was, as director of her private orchestra, for a long time
was unable to hear him play without fainting. In women he produced
nervous fits and hysterics at his will; stout-hearted men he drove to
frenzy. He changed cowards into heroes and made the bravest soldiers
feel like so many nervous school-girls. Is it to be wondered at, then,
that hundreds of weird tales circulated for long years about and
around the mysterious Genoese, that modern Orpheus of Europe? One of
these was especially ghastly. It was rumored, and was believed by more
people than would probably like to confess it, that the strings of his
violin were made of _human intestines, according to all the rules and
requirements of the Black Art_.
Exaggerated as this idea may seem to some, it has nothing impossible in
it; and it is more than probable that it was this legend that led to
the extraordinary events which we are about to narrate. Human organs
are often used by the Eastern Black Magician, so-called, and it is an
averred fact that some Bengâlî Tântrikas (reciters of _tantras_, or
“invocations to the demon,” as a reverend writer has described them)
use human corpses, and certain internal and external organs pertaining
to them, as powerful magical agents for bad purposes.
However this may be, now that the magnetic and mesmeric potencies
of hypnotism are recognized as facts by most physicians, it may be
suggested with less danger than heretofore that the extraordinary
effects of Paganini’s violin-playing were not, perhaps, entirely due
to his talent and genius. The wonder and awe he so easily excited were
as much caused by his external appearance, “which had something weird
and demoniacal in it,” according to certain of his biographers, as by
the inexpressible charm of his execution and his remarkable mechanical
skill. The latter is demonstrated by his perfect imitation of the
flageolet, and his performance of long and magnificent melodies on the
G string alone. In this performance, which many an artist has tried to
copy without success, he remains unrivaled to this day.
It is owing to this remarkable appearance of his—termed by his
friends eccentric, and by his too nervous victims, diabolical—that
he experienced great difficulties in refuting certain ugly rumors.
These were credited far more easily in his day than they would be
now. It was whispered throughout Italy, and even in his own native
town, that Paganini had murdered his wife, and, later on, a mistress,
both of whom he had loved passionately, and both of whom he had not
hesitated to sacrifice to his fiendish ambition. He had made himself
proficient in magic arts, it was asserted, and had succeeded thereby
in imprisoning the souls of his two victims in his violin—his famous
Cremona.
It is maintained by the immediate friends of Ernst T. W. Hoffmann, the
celebrated author of _Die Elixire des Teufels_, _Meister Martin_, and
other charming and mystical tales, that Councillor Crespel, in the
_Violin of Cremona_, was taken from the legend about Paganini. It is,
as all who have read it know, the history of a celebrated violin, into
which the voice and the soul of a famous diva, a woman whom Crespel had
loved and killed, had passed, and to which was added the voice of his
beloved daughter, Antonia.
Nor was this superstition utterly ungrounded, nor was Hoffmann to
be blamed for adopting it, after he had heard Paganini’s playing.
The extraordinary facility with which the artist drew out of his
instrument, not only the most unearthly sounds, but positively human
voices, justified the suspicion. Such effects might well have startled
an audience and thrown terror into many a nervous heart. Add to this
the impenetrable mystery connected with a certain period of Paganini’s
youth, and the most wild tales about him must be found in a measure
justifiable, and even excusable; especially among a nation whose
ancestors knew the Borgias and the Medicis of Black Art fame.
III
In those pre-telegraphic days, newspapers were limited, and the wings
of fame had a heavier flight than they have now. Franz had hardly heard
of Paganini; and when he did, he swore he would rival, if not eclipse,
the Genoese magician. Yes, he would either become the most famous of
all living violinists, or he would break his instrument and put an end
to his life at the same time.
Old Klaus rejoiced at such a determination. He rubbed his hands in
glee, and jumping about on his lame leg like a crippled satyr, he
flattered and incensed his pupil, believing himself all the while to be
performing a sacred duty to the holy and majestic cause of art.
Upon first setting foot in Paris, three years before, Franz had
all but failed. Musical critics pronounced him a rising star, but
had all agreed that he required a few more years’ practice, before
he could hope to carry his audiences by storm. Therefore, after a
desperate study of over two years and uninterrupted preparations, the
Styrian artist had finally made himself ready for his first serious
appearance in the great Opera House where a public concert before
the most exacting critics of the old world was to be held; at this
critical moment Paganini’s arrival in the European metropolis placed
an obstacle in the way of the realization of his hopes, and the old
German professor wisely postponed his pupil’s _début_. At first he had
simply smiled at the wild enthusiasm, the laudatory hymns sung about
the Genoese violinist, and the almost superstitious awe with which his
name was pronounced. But very soon Paganini’s name became a burning
iron in the hearts of both the artists, and a threatening phantom in
the mind of Klaus. A few days more, and they shuddered at the very
mention of their great rival, whose success became with every night
more unprecedented.
The first series of concerts was over, but neither Klaus nor Franz
had as yet had an opportunity of hearing him and of judging for
themselves. So great and so beyond their means was the charge for
admission, and so small the hope of getting a free pass from a brother
artist justly regarded as the meanest of men in monetary transactions,
that they had to wait for a chance, as did so many others. But the day
came when neither master nor pupil could control their impatience any
longer; so they pawned their watches, and with the proceeds bought two
modest seats.
Who can describe the enthusiasm, the triumphs, of this famous, and at
the same time fatal night! The audience was frantic; men wept and women
screamed and fainted; while both Klaus and Stenio sat looking paler
than two ghosts. At the first touch of Paganini’s magic bow, both Franz
and Samuel felt as if the icy hand of death had touched them. Carried
away by an irresistible enthusiasm, which turned into a violent,
unearthly mental torture, they dared neither look into each other’s
faces, nor exchange one word during the whole performance.
At midnight, while the chosen delegates of the Musical Societies
and the Conservatory of Paris unhitched the horses, and dragged the
carriage of the grand artist home in triumph, the two Germans returned
to their modest lodging, and it was a pitiful sight to see them.
Mournful and desperate, they placed themselves in their usual seats at
the fire-corner, and neither for a while opened his mouth.
“Samuel!” at last exclaimed Franz, pale as death itself. “Samuel—it
remains for us now but to die!... Do you hear me?... We are worthless!
We were two madmen to have ever hoped that any one in this world would
ever rival ... him.”
The name of Paganini stuck in his throat, as in utter despair he fell
into his arm chair.
The old professor’s wrinkles suddenly became purple. His little
greenish eyes gleamed phosphorescently as, bending toward his pupil, he
whispered to him in hoarse and broken tones:
“_Nein, Nein!_ Thou art wrong, my Franz! I have taught thee, and thou
hast learned all of the great art that a simple mortal, and a Christian
by baptism, can learn from another simple mortal. Am I to blame because
these accursed Italians, in order to reign unequaled in the domain of
art, have recourse to Satan and the diabolical effects of Black Magic?”
Franz turned his eyes upon his old master. There was a sinister light
burning in those glittering orbs; a light telling plainly that, to
secure such a power, he, too, would not scruple to sell himself, body
and soul, to the Evil One.
But he said not a word, and, turning his eyes from his old master’s
face, gazed dreamily at the dying embers.
The same long-forgotten incoherent dreams, which, after seeming such
realities to him in his younger days, had been given up entirely, and
had gradually faded from his mind, now crowded back into it with the
same force and vividness as of old. The grimacing shades of Ixion,
Sisyphus and Tantalus resurrected and stood before him, saying:
“What matters hell—in which thou believest not. And even if hell there
be, it is the hell described by the old Greeks, not that of the modern
bigots—a locality full of conscious shadows, to whom thou canst be a
second Orpheus.”
Franz felt that he was going mad, and, turning instinctively, he
looked his old master once more right in the face. Then his bloodshot
eye evaded the gaze of Klaus.
Whether Samuel understood the terrible state of mind of his pupil,
or whether he wanted to draw him out, to make him speak, and thus to
divert his thoughts, must remain as hypothetical to the reader as
it is to the writer. Whatever may have been in his mind, the German
enthusiast went on, speaking with a feigned calmness:
“Franz, my dear boy, I tell you that the art of the accursed Italian
is not natural; that it is due neither to study nor to genius. It
never was acquired in the usual, natural way. You need not stare at
me in that wild manner, for what I say is in the mouth of millions of
people. Listen to what I now tell you, and try to understand. You have
heard the strange tale whispered about the famous Tartini? He died one
fine Sabbath night strangled by his familiar demon, who had taught
him how to endow his violin with a human voice, by shutting up in it,
by means of incantations, the soul of a young virgin. Paganini did
more. In order to endow his instrument with the faculty of emitting
human sounds, such as sobs, despairing cries, supplications, moans
of love and fury—in short, the most heart-rending notes of the human
voice—Paganini became the murderer not only of his wife and his
mistress, but also of a friend, who was more tenderly attached to
him than any other being on this earth. He then made the four chords
of his magic violin out of the intestines of his last victim. This
is the secret of his enchanting talent of that overpowering melody,
that combination of sounds, which you will never be able to master
unless....”
The old man could not finish his sentence. He staggered back before the
fiendish look of his pupil, and covered his face with his hands.
Franz was breathing heavily, and his eyes had an expression which
reminded Klaus of those of a hyena. His pallor was cadaverous. For some
time he could not speak, but only gasp for breath. At last he slowly
muttered:
“Are you in earnest?”
“I am, as I hope to help you.”
“And.... And do you really believe that had I only the means of
obtaining human intestines for strings, I could rival Paganini?” asked
Franz, after a moment’s pause, and casting down his eyes.
The old German unveiled his face, and, with a strange look of
determination upon it, softly answered:
“Human intestines alone are not sufficient for our purpose; they must
have belonged to some one who had loved us well, with an unselfish,
holy love. Tartini endowed his violin with the life of a virgin; but
that virgin had died of unrequited love for him. The fiendish artist
had prepared beforehand a tube, in which he managed to catch her last
breath as she expired, pronouncing his beloved name, and he then
transferred this breath to his violin. As to Paganini, I have just told
you his tale. It was with the consent of his victim, though, that he
murdered him to get possession of his intestines.
“Oh, for the power of the human voice!” Samuel went on, after a brief
pause. “What can equal the eloquence, the magic spell of the human
voice? Do you think, my poor boy, I would not have taught you this
great, this final secret, were it not that it throws one right into the
clutches of him ... who must remain unnamed at night?” he added, with
a sudden return to the superstitions of his youth.
Franz did not answer; but with a calmness awful to behold, he left his
place, took down his violin from the wall where it was hanging, and,
with one powerful grasp of the chords, he tore them out and flung them
into the fire.
Samuel suppressed a cry of horror. The chords were hissing upon the
coals, where, among the blazing logs, they wriggled and curled like so
many living snakes.
“By the witches of Thessaly and the dark arts of Circe!” he exclaimed,
with foaming mouth and his eyes burning like coals; “by the Furies of
Hell and Pluto himself, I now swear, in thy presence, O Samuel, my
master, never to touch a violin again until I can string it with four
human chords. May I be accursed for ever and ever if I do!” He fell
senseless on the floor, with a deep sob, that ended like a funeral
wail; old Samuel lifted him up as he would have lifted a child, and
carried him to his bed. Then he sallied forth in search of a physician.
IV
For several days after this painful scene Franz was very ill, ill
almost beyond recovery. The physician declared him to be suffering
from brain fever and said that the worst was to be feared. For nine
long days the patient remained delirious; and Klaus, who was nursing
him night and day with the solicitude of the tenderest mother, was
horrified at the work of his own hands. For the first time since their
acquaintance began, the old teacher, owing to the wild ravings of his
pupil, was able to penetrate into the darkest corners of that weird,
superstitious, cold, and, at the same time, passionate nature; and—he
trembled at what he discovered. For he saw that which he had failed
to perceive before—Franz as he was in reality, and not as he seemed
to superficial observers. Music was the life of the young man, and
adulation was the air he breathed, without which that life became a
burden; from the chords of his violin alone, Stenio drew his life and
being, but the applause of men and even of Gods was necessary to its
support. He saw unveiled before his eyes a genuine, artistic, _earthly_
soul, with its divine counterpart totally absent, a son of the Muses,
all fancy and brain poetry, but without a heart. While listening to
the ravings of that delirious and unhinged fancy Klaus felt as if
he were for the first time in his long life exploring a marvelous
and untraveled region, a human nature not of this world but of some
incomplete planet. He saw all this, and shuddered. More than once he
asked himself whether it would not be doing a kindness to his “boy” to
let him die before he returned to consciousness.
But he loved his pupil too well to dwell for long on such an idea.
Franz had bewitched his truly artistic nature, and now old Klaus felt
as though their two lives were inseparably linked together. That he
could thus feel was a revelation to the old man; so he decided to save
Franz, even at the expense of his own old and, as he thought, useless
life.
The seventh day of the illness brought on a most terrible crisis. For
twenty-four hours the patient never closed his eyes, nor remained for a
moment silent; he raved continuously during the whole time. His visions
were peculiar, and he minutely described each. Fantastic, ghastly
figures kept slowly swimming out of the penumbra of his small dark
room, in regular and uninterrupted procession, and he greeted each by
name as he might greet old acquaintances. He referred to himself as
Prometheus, bound to the rock by four bands made of human intestines.
At the foot of the Caucasian Mount the black waters of the river Styx
were running.... They had deserted Arcadia, and were now endeavoring
to encircle within a seven-fold embrace the rock upon which he was
suffering....
“Wouldst thou know the name of the Promethean rock, old man?” he roared
into his adopted father’s ear.... “Listen then, ... its name is ...
called ... Samuel Klaus....”
“Yes, yes!...” the German murmured disconsolately. “It is I who killed
him, while seeking to console. The news of Paganini’s magic arts struck
his fancy too vividly.... Oh, my poor, poor boy!”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” The patient broke into a loud and discordant laugh.
“Aye, poor old man, sayest thou?... So, so, thou art of poor stuff,
anyhow, and wouldst look well only when stretched upon a fine Cremona
violin!...”
Klaus shuddered, but said nothing. He only bent over the poor maniac,
and with a kiss upon his brow, a caress as tender and as gentle as that
of a doting mother, he left the sick-room for a few instants, to seek
relief in his own garret. When he returned, the ravings were following
another channel. Franz was singing, trying to imitate the sounds of a
violin.
Toward the evening of that day, the delirium of the sick man became
perfectly ghastly. He saw spirits of fire clutching at his violin.
Their skeleton hands, from each finger of which grew a flaming claw,
beckoned to old Samuel.... They approached and surrounded the old
master, and were preparing to rip him open ... him “the only man on
this earth who loves me with an unselfish, holy love, and ... whose
intestines can be of any good at all!” he went on whispering, with
glaring eyes and demon laugh....
By the next morning, however, the fever had disappeared, and by the end
of the ninth day Stenio had left his bed, having no recollection of his
illness, and no suspicion that he had allowed Klaus to read his inner
thought. Nay; had he himself any knowledge that such a horrible idea as
the sacrifice of his old master to his ambition had ever entered his
mind? Hardly. The only immediate result of his fatal illness was, that
as, by reason of his vow, his artistic passion could find no issue,
another passion awoke, which might avail to feed his ambition and his
insatiable fancy. He plunged headlong into the study of the Occult
Arts, of Alchemy and of Magic. In the practice of Magic the young
dreamer sought to stifle the voice of his passionate longing for his,
as he thought, for ever lost violin....
Weeks and months passed away, and the conversation about Paganini
was never resumed between the master and the pupil. But a profound
melancholy had taken possession of Franz, the two hardly exchanged a
word, the violin hung mute, chordless, full of dust, in its habitual
place. It was as the presence of a soulless corpse between them.
The young man had become gloomy and sarcastic, even avoiding the
mention of music. Once, as his old professor, after long hesitation,
took out his own violin from its dust-covered case and prepared to
play, Franz gave a convulsive shudder, but said nothing. At the first
notes of the bow, however, he glared like a madman, and rushing out
of the house, remained for hours, wandering in the streets. Then old
Samuel in his turn threw his instrument down, and locked himself up in
his room till the following morning.
One night as Franz sat, looking particularly pale and gloomy, old
Samuel suddenly jumped from his seat, and after hopping about the room
in a magpie fashion, approached his pupil, imprinted a fond kiss upon
the young man’s brow, and squeaked at the top of his shrill voice:
“Is it not time to put an end to all this?”...
Whereupon, starting from his usual lethargy, Franz echoed, as in a
dream:
“Yes, it is time to put an end to this.”
Upon which the two separated, and went to bed.
On the following morning, when Franz awoke, he was astonished not
to see his old teacher in his usual place to greet him. But he had
greatly altered during the last few months, and he at first paid no
attention to his absence, unusual as it was. He dressed and went into
the adjoining room, a little parlor where they had their meals, and
which separated their two bedrooms. The fire had not been lighted since
the embers had died out on the previous night, and no sign was anywhere
visible of the professor’s busy hand in his usual housekeeping duties.
Greatly puzzled, but in no way dismayed, Franz took his usual place
at the corner of the now cold fire-place, and fell into an aimless
reverie. As he stretched himself in his old arm-chair, raising both
his hands to clasp them behind his head in a favorite posture of his,
his hand came into contact with something on a shelf at his back; he
knocked against a case, and brought it violently on the ground.
It was old Klaus’ violin-case that came down to the floor with such
a sudden crash that the case opened and the violin fell out of it,
rolling to the feet of Franz. And then the chords, striking against
the brass fender emitted a sound, prolonged, sad and mournful as the
sigh of an unrestful soul; it seemed to fill the whole room, and
reverberated in the head and the very heart of the young man. The
effect of that broken violin-string was magical.
“Samuel!” cried Stenio, with his eyes starting from their sockets,
and an unknown terror suddenly taking possession of his whole being.
“Samuel! what has happened?... My good, my dear old master!” he called
out, hastening to the professor’s little room, and throwing the door
violently open. No one answered, all was silent within.
He staggered back, frightened at the sound of his own voice, so changed
and hoarse it seemed to him at this moment. No reply came in response
to his call. Naught followed but a dead silence ... that stillness
which, in the domain of sounds, usually denotes death. In the presence
of a corpse, as in the lugubrious stillness of a tomb, such silence
acquires a mysterious power, which strikes the sensitive soul with a
nameless terror.... The little room was dark, and Franz hastened to
open the shutters.
* * * * *
Samuel was lying on his bed, cold, stiff, and lifeless.... At the sight
of the corpse of him who had loved him so well, and had been to him
more than a father, Franz experienced a dreadful revulsion of feeling,
a terrible shock. But the ambition of the fanatical artist got the
better of the despair of the man, and smothered the feelings of the
latter in a few seconds.