Now, when anything attracted his attention he always asked what it meant;
and his mother, or more frequently Uncle Maxim, would explain to him
the nature of the objects or of the creatures that caused these various
sounds. His mother’s explanations, more lively and graphic, impressed
the boy with greater force; but sometimes this impression would be too
painful. Upon the features of the young woman, herself suffering, could
be read the expression of her inmost feelings, and in her eyes a silent
protest or a look of pain, as she strove to convey to the child an
idea of form and color. With contracted brow and wrinkled forehead the
boy concentrated his whole attention. Evidently his brain was at work
struggling with difficult problems; his unpractised imagination strove
to shape from the descriptions given him a new image,—a feat which it
was unable to perform. At such times Uncle Maxim always frowned with
displeasure; and when the tears appeared in the mother’s eyes, and the
child’s face grew pale from the effect of his intense effort, Maxim would
interfere, and taking his sister’s place would tell his nephew stories,
in the invention of which he would try to use only such ideas as related
to sound and space. Then the face of the blind boy would grow calmer.
“And is he big?” the child asked about the stork, who seemed to be
beating in his nest a slow tattoo. Saying this he began to spread out his
arms; for this was his custom whenever he asked such questions, and Uncle
Maxim would always tell him when he had extended them far enough. But
this time he had stretched out his little arms to their utmost limit, and
Uncle Maxim said,—
“No, he is still larger. If he were brought into this room and put upon
the floor, his head would reach above the back of the chair.”
“He _is_ large,” said the boy thoughtfully; “and the red-wing is like
this,” slightly parting his folded palms.
“Yes, the red-wing is like this. But the large birds never sing so well
as little ones. The red-wing tries to make everybody pleased to hear him,
but the stork is a serious bird; he stands on one leg in his nest, and
looks about like an angry master watching his workmen, and mutters aloud,
heeding not that his voice is hoarse, and that he can be overheard by
outsiders.”
The boy laughed merrily while he listened to these descriptions, and
for a time forgot his painful efforts to understand his mother’s words.
Yet her stories possessed a greater charm for him, and he preferred to
question her rather than Uncle Maxim.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: II. THE SOURCES OF MUSICAL FEELING. THE BLIND BOY AND THE
MELODY.]