Project Gutenberg Australia


Title: The Secret of the Stradivarius
Author: Hugh Conway
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0605361.txt
Language: English
Date first posted: August 2006
Date most recently updated: August 2006

This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott

Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
file.

This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html


To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au


The Secret of the Stradivarius
Hugh Conway




MY friend Luigi is reckoned one of the finest violin. players of the
day. His wonderful skill has made him famous, and he is well known and
honoured for his talent in every capital in Europe.

If in these pages I call him by another name than the one he has made
famous, it is solely on account of a promise he exacted from me, in
case I should ever feel tempted to make the following strange
experiences, we shared together, public property. I am afraid,
nevertheless, that too many will readily identify the man himself with
the portrait I am obliged to draw.

Luigi--leaving his professional greatness out of the question--would
have been a noticeable man in any company, a man that people would
look at and ask not only, "Who is he?" but "What has he done in the
world?" knowing that men of his stamp are seldom sent upon this scene
to live an ordinary everyday life. In person he was very tall,
standing over six feet. His figure was graceful, and might even be
called slight, but had breadth of shoulder enough to tell it was the
figure of a strong man; a face with a pale but clear complexion; dark
deep-set eyes, with a sort of far-away expression in them; black hair,
worn long, after the manner of geniuses of his kind; a high but rugged
forehead; a well shaped nose; a drooping moustache; a hand whose long
and delicate fingers seemed constructed for their particular mission--
violin-playing. Picture all these, and if you enjoy the acquaintance
of the musical world, or even if you have been in the habit of
attending concerts where stars of the first magnitude condescend to
shine, I fear, in spite of my promise of concealing his name, you will
too easily recognize my friend.

Luigi's manner in ordinary life was very quiet, gentlemanly, and
reposed. He was, in his dreamy sort of way, highly courteous and
polite to strangers. Although, when alone with me or other friends he
loved, he had plenty to say for himself--and his broken English was
pleasant to listen to--in general company he spoke but little. But let
his left hand close round the neck of a fiddle, let his right hand
grasp the bow, and one knew directly for what purpose Luigi came into
the world. Then the man lived and revelled, as it were, in a life of
his own making. The notes his craft drew forth were like bracing air
to him; he seemed actually to respire the music, and his dreamy eyes
awoke and shone with fire. He did that rare thing--rare indeed, but
lacking which no performer can rise to fame--threw his whole soul into
his playing. His manner, his very attitude as he commenced, was a
complete study. Drawing himself up to every inch of his height, he
placed the violin--nestling it, I may say--under his chin, and then
taking a long breath of what appeared to be anticipatory pleasure,
swept his magician's wand over the sleeping strings, and waking them
with the charmed touch, wove his wonderful spell of music. The moment
the horse-hair came in contact with the gut, the listener knew he was
in the presence of a master.

Luigi had come to London for the season, having, after much
negotiation and persuasion, accepted an engagement at a long series of
some of the best, if cheapest and most popular, concerts held in
London. It was his first visit to England: he had ever disliked the
country, and believed very little in the national love for good music,
or in the power of appreciating it when heard. He disliked, also, the
trumpeting with which the promoters of the concerts heralded his
appearance. Although his fame was great already throughout the
Continent, he dreaded the effect of playing to an unsympathetic
audience. His fears were, however, groundless. Whether the people
liked and understood his music and style of playing or not, they at
least appeared to do so; and the newspapers, one and all, unable to do
things by halves, went into raptures over him. They compared him with
Paganini, Ole Bull, and other bygone masters, and their comparisons
were very flattering. Altogether, Luigi was a great success.

I met him on two occasions at the houses of some friends of mine, who
are in the habit of spending much time, trouble, and some money on
that strange sport, lion-hunting. His concerts were held, I think, on
two evenings in every week; so he had time at his disposal, and was
somewhat sought after. We were introduced, and I took a liking to the
quiet, gentlemanly celebrity, who, different from many others whose
names are in the mouths of men, gave himself no airs, nor vaunted, by
words or manner, the "aristocracy of talent". I could make shift to
converse with him fairly enough in his own soft language; so that upon
my meeting him the second time, he expressed his pleasure at again
encountering me. A few days afterwards we met by chance in the street,
and I was able to extricate him from some little difficulty, into
which his imperfect knowledge of English and of English ways had
betrayed him. Then our acquaintance ripened, until it became
friendship; and even at this day I reckon him amongst the friends I
hold the dearest.

I saw a great deal of Luigi during his stay in London. We made
pleasant little excursions together to objects of interest he wished
to visit. We spent many evenings together--nights I should rather say,
for the small hours had sounded when we parted, leaving the room dim
with the smoke from my cigars and his own cigarettes. Like many of his
countrymen, he smoked simply whenever he could get the chance; and
when alone with me, I believe the only cessation to his consumption of
tobacco was when he took his beloved fiddle in his hand and played for
his own pleasure and my delight.

He was a charming companion--indeed what man who had seen such varied
life as he had, could be otherwise when drawn out by the confidence
that friendship gives? and I soon found that under the external
calmness of the man lay a nature full of poetry, and not free from
excitement. I was also much amused to find a vivid vein of
superstition and belief in the supernatural running through his
character; and I believe it was only my merriment on making the
discovery that hindered him from expatiating upon some ghostly
experiences he had gone through himself, instead of darkly hinting at
what he could reveal. It was in vain I apologized for my ill-timed
mirth, and with a grave face tried to tempt him. He only said: "You,
like the rest of your cold-blooded, money-making race, are sceptical,
my friend. I will tell you nothing. You would not believe; you would
laugh at me--and ridicule is death to me."

Another thing he was very tenacious about--showing his skill when
invited out. He invariably declined, seeming quite puzzled by the
polite hints some of his entertainers threw out.

"Why can they not come and hear me in public?" he asked me. "Or can it
be that they only ask me to their houses for my talents, not for my
society?"

I told him I was afraid their motives were rather mixed; so he said
quietly---

"Then I shall not go out again. When I do not play in public to earn
my living, I play for myself alone."

He kept his resolve as well as he could--declining all of his many
invitations, save those to a few houses where he knew he was valued,
as he wished to be, for himself.

But when I was alone with him! when I visited him at his rooms! then
he was not chary in showing his skill; and although I blush to say so,
at times I had violin-playing ad nauseam. A surfeit of sweets--a
satiety of music. I often wonder if it has ever been any man's lot to
hear such performances as I did in those days when I lay, grown
careless of the good the gods would send me, at full length on Luigi's
sofa; and the master of the magic bow expounded themes in a manner
which would have brought the house down. Till then I little dreamt of
what, in skilful hands, the instrument could do. How true genius could
bid it laugh, sob, command, entreat--sink into a wail of pathetic
pleading, or soar to a song of scorn and triumph! what power to
express every emotion of the heart lay in those few inches of
cunningly curved wood! Now I could understand why Luigi could play so
much for his own enjoyment; and at times it seemed to me that his
execution was even more wonderful, his expression more thrilling, when
I alone formed his audience, than when a vast assembly was before him,
ready, as the last impassioned notes sank into silence, to break into
a storm of rapturous applause.

Luigi was a connoisseur in fiddles, and owned several pet instruments
by the most renowned makers. Sometimes of an evening he would bring
out his whole stock, look them carefully over, play a little on each,
and point out to me the difference in the tone. Then he would wax
eloquent on the peculiar charms or gifts the master's hand had
bestowed on each, and was indignant that I was so obtuse as not to
detect, at once, the exquisite gradations of the graceful curves.
After a short time the names of Amati, Ruggieri, Guarnerius, Klotz,
Stainer, &c, grew quite familiar to me; and as I went through the
streets I would peep into the pawnbrokers' and other windows with
fiddles in them, hoping to pick up a treasure for a few shillings. Two
or three I did buy, but my friend laughed so heartily at my purchases
I gave up the pursuit.

He told me he had for a long while been looking for a genuine old
Stradivarius, but, as yet, had not succeeded in finding the one he
wanted. He had been offered many, purporting to have come originally
from the great maker's hands, but probably they were all pretenders,
as he was not suited yet.

One evening when I visited Luigi I found him with all his musical
treasures arrayed around him. He was putting them in order, he said. I
must amuse myself as best I could until he had finished. I turned idly
from one case to another, wondering how any experience could determine
the build of any particular violin, all of which, to my untutored
eyes, appeared alike. Presently I opened one case which was closed,
and drew the fiddle it held from its snug, red-lined bed. I did not
remember having seen this one before, so took it in my hand to examine
it--holding it, after the manner of connoisseurs, edgeways before my
eyes to note the curves and shape of it. It was evidently old--my
little knowledge told me that; and as, even though protected by the
case, dust lay upon it, I could see it had not been used for a long,
long time. Moreover, all the strings were broken. Curiously, each one
was severed at exactly the same point--just below the bridge--as if
someone had passed a sharp knife across, and with one movement cut all
four.

Holding the ill-used instrument towards Luigi, I said, "This one seems
particularly to want your attention. Is it a valuable one?"

Luigi, who was engrossed by the delicate operation of shifting the
sounding-post of one of his pet weapons, some infinitesimal part of an
inch to the left or to the right, turned as I spoke, still holding his
ends of string in each hand. As soon as he saw the violin I had taken
up, he let fall the one he held between his knees, and, to my great
surprise, said hastily---

"Put it down--put it down, my friend. I beseech you not to handle that
violin."

Rather annoyed at the testy way in which my usually amiable friend
spoke, I laid it down, saying, "Is it so precious, then, that you are
afraid of my clumsy hands damaging it?"

"Ah, it is not that," answered Luigi, "it is something altogether
different. I did not know my man had brought that fiddle in. I never
intended it should have left Italy."

"It looks an old one. Who is it by?"

"That is a real old Stradivarius; the acme of mortal skill; the one
thing human hands have made in this world perfect--perfect as a
flower, perfect as the sea. A Stradivarius is the only thing that
cannot be altered--cannot be improved upon."

"Why do you never use it?"

"I cannot tell you--you would not believe me. There is a something
about that fiddle I cannot explain. I believe it to be the finest in
the world. It may be even that Manfredi played upon it to Boccherini's
'cello. It may be Kruger led with it when the mighty applause rang
through the Kärntnerthor, shaking it from floor to floor to roof-tree,
but which he, the grand deaf genius, Beethoven, could not even hear.
Who can tell what hands have used it? and yet, alas! I dare not play
upon it again."

Rendered very curious by Luigi's enigmatical words and excited manner,
I ventured to take the violin in my hands again, and examined it with
interest. I looked carefully at the belly and back, noting the
beautiful red but translucent varnish known alone to Stradivarius,
with which the latter was coated. I peeped through the ff's, to
ascertain if any maker's name appeared inside. If one had ever been
there it was completely obliterated by a dark stain, covering the
greater portion of the inside of the back. Luigi offered no
remonstrance as I took the fiddle for the second time, but sat silent,
watching me with apparent interest.

And now a strange thing occurred to me--let who can explain it. After
holding that fiddle a few minutes, I felt a wish--an impulse--growing
stronger and stronger each moment, till it became almost irresistible,
to play upon it. It was not a musician's natural itching to try a fine
old violin, as I am no musician, although fond of listening to music,
and at times venturing to criticize; neither have I learnt nor
attempted to learn the art of performing on any instrument, from the
Jew's-harp to the organ. And yet, I say, as my fingers were round the
neck--as soft as silk it was--of that old violin, not only did I feel
a positive yearning to pass the bow across it, but somehow I was
filled with the conviction, odd as it was that all at once I was
possessed of the power of bringing rare music forth. So strong, so
intense was this feeling, that, heedless of the ridicule I should
expose myself to from my companion--heedless, indeed, of his
presence--I cuddled the fiddle under my chin, and took up one of the
several bows lying on the table. My left fingers fell instinctively
into their proper position on the strings, or rather where the strings
should have been; and then I remembered the ruined state they were in,
and with all my new-born skill, knew that no miraculous inspiration,
even if it produced a fiddler, could bring forth music from wood
alone. Yet the impulse was on me stronger than ever; and absurd as it
may seem, I turned to Luigi with the request on my lips that he would
re-string the useless instrument.

Luigi had been watching me attentively; no doubt he had studied every
motion, every vagary of mine since I commenced handling the fiddle
again. Seeing me turn towards him, he sprang from his seat, and before
I could speak, snatched the fiddle from my hands, replacing it at once
in its case; then closing the cover, he heaved a deep sigh of relief.
I had no time to entreat, remonstrate, or resist; but as he took the
fiddle from me, all wish to distinguish myself in a line that was not
my own left me, and I almost laughed aloud at the folly and
presumption of which I had been mentally guilty. Yet it was strange--
very strange.

"Ah," said Luigi, as he placed the fiddle out of sight under the
table, "so you felt it also, my friend?"

"Felt what?"

"The--I don't know what to call it--the power, the sorcery of it."

"I felt--don't laugh at me--had the strings been there, I who never
played a fiddle in my life, could have drawn exquisite music from that
one. What does it mean?"

Luigi returned no answer to my inquiry, but said, as if thinking
aloud---

"So it was no dream of mine. He, the cool, collected Englishman,--he
felt it also. He could not resist the impulse. It was no dream--no
creation of my fancy; would he see it, I wonder?"

"See what?" I asked, curious to know what his wandering sentences
meant.

"I cannot tell you. You would not believe me."

"But what do you mean by the sorcery of the fiddle?"

"Did I say sorcery?--Well, I know no other word that can describe it.
Although I tell you I believe that fiddle is the finest in the world,
I have only played upon it twice; and the second time I drew my knife
across the strings, that I might never again be tempted to play upon
it without due consideration."

"What is its history, then? Where did you get it?" I asked, by this
time thinking my friend was suffering from some eccentricity that
genius occasionally exhibits.

"It was sent me originally from London. When I found out its secret, I
begged my agent in England to ascertain its history. After some
trouble, he traced it to a house, where, for many years, it had lain
unnoticed in a garret. That house had once been a lodging-house; so
doubtless the fiddle had belonged to someone who had sojourned there
for a time. I could learn no more about it, save what it told me in
its music."

I saw Luigi was far away from any wish to jest, so paused before I
asked him the meaning of his last sentence. He anticipated me, and
said---

"You wonder at my words. Did you notice nothing else strange about
it?"

"Only a dark stain inside: as if wine had been spilt into it."

"Ah!" cried Luigi, excitedly, "that is it! that is the secret--the
meaning of the power it holds. If it were not for the varnish that
fiddle would be stained outside and inside. That stain is from a man's
heart's blood, and that fiddle can tell you why he died."

"I do not understand you."

"I do not expect you to--or believe me--why should you? What have you,
an unimaginative Anglo-Saxon, to do with marvels? How, in the centre
of a great, cruel, material city, with the ceaseless sound of traffic
outside our windows should you expect anything supernatural? It may be
I only dreamt it. Perhaps you would not see it. And yet, one night
when I feel strong enough, we will take the fiddle from its case, and
I will play it to you--I who have not laid a finger on it for five
years until tonight. And then, if its music moves you as it moved me,
I dreamt no dream. If not, I will say it was a dream, and I may at
last be able to use this masterpiece of Stradivarius."

I begged him to name an early day for the curious performance, but he
would make no promise; so we parted for the night.

A month passed by: Luigi's London engagement terminated, and he was
now going to win fresh laurels at Berlin. I had seen him two or three
times every week, but he had never referred to the conversation which
had taken place upon the night I drew the strange violin from its
case, nor I had he offered to redeem his promise on that occasion. I
had ceased to think about it, or indeed only remembered it as a jest,
laughing at the idea of a superstitious man not being able to play on
any particular fiddle. Two days before he left England he wrote me
asking me to dine with him that night; adding, "I think I may keep my
promise of playing upon the Stradivarius."

We dined at a well-known restaurant, and about ten o'clock went to
Luigi's rooms to finish the night. The first thing I saw, upon
entering, was the fiddle-case lying on the table,--Luigi's favourite
bow and several coils of strings beside it. We sat down and talked on
various topics for about an hour, and then I said---

"I see you have made preparations for the performance. When do you
intend to begin?"

Luigi drew a deep breath. "My friend," he said, "you will not blame me
if my playing agitates you; and remember, when I once commence I must
continue to the end. It is no pleasure to me--it is rather deadly
pain. But I am curious, and would satisfy my doubts."

He was so much in earnest that I checked the laugh his solemn manner
called up, and merely nodded acquiescence. He then rose, and saying,
"We must not be interrupted," called his servant, and after giving him
the necessary instructions locked the door, placing the key in his
pocket. He then opened the mysterious case, and with tender hands drew
forth the violin. His nimble fingers soon detached the severed
strings, knotted on the new ones, and in the course of about a quarter
of an hour the instrument was ready, and tuned to his satisfaction. I
felt, as I watched him, I should like to take the violin in my hands
once more, to see if the strange desire I had before experienced would
again come over me--but hardly liked to ask him to permit me to do so.
And now all was ready--Luigi's critical ear satisfied with the sound
of the strings, and he seemed about to strike his favourite attitude.
Yet I noticed his pale face was paler than usual, and the hand poising
the bow seemed tremulous; and as I looked at him, a sympathetic
feeling of fear--a dread of something, I knew not what--crept-over me.
It seemed too absurd, however, to be disturbed by an excitable Italian
playing a violin in a room with all the appliances of modern every day
life around me; so I laughed away the feeling, placed myself in my
favourite attitude for listening to the master's performances--at full
length on the sofa--and was prepared to give my undivided attention to
the music.

And yet, for a while Luigi did not commence, although he saw I had
resigned myself to my fate. He had placed the violin under his chin;
his left-hand fingers were on the strings, but for some minutes he
contented himself with beating a sort of time, or rhythmical measure,
with the bow. One would have said he was endeavouring to recall
something he had heard once, and only imperfectly remembered.

"What theme are you going to play to me?" I asked.

On hearing my voice he looked at me vacantly, and only upon my
repeating the question did he seem aware of my presence. Then with an
effort he said, ceasing not to beat time the while---

"Ah, that I do not know. I am no longer my own master; I cannot
choose. Let me beg of you not to interrupt me again, my friend."

I said no more, but watched him with anxious eyes. The left-hand
fingers slipped, slid, and danced in dumb show up and down the
strings, the bow for ever beating time. A sort of shiver passed over
him; then, drawing himself up, he swept the bow across the strings,
and the fiddle, silent for so many years, found tongue at last.

A weird strain, commanding the listener's attention at once--a strain
I knew I had never heard before. So curious the opening bars sounded,
that, had I dared, I should have said several well-established rules
of harmony were outraged. And yet, in spite of its peculiarity, I knew
that he who created that music was a master in the art. It was not
Wagner, I was sure, although somewhat of his remarkable power of
expression, and of moving the mind without the aid of melody, was
present. The first thirty bars, or so, appeared to me to be of the
nature of an overture, heralding the performance to follow. In
snatches of mystic music the violin spoke of joy and sorrow, pain and
pleasure, love and hate, hope and fear; and as my own thoughts
responded to the varied emotions, I lay and wondered who could have
written the music, affecting me so; and thought how fortunate the
unknown composer was to have such an exponent of his ideas as Luigi.
Yet, as I looked at the latter, it struck me his style of playing
tonight was different from usual. Faultless though the execution was--
marvellous as were the strains those facile fingers drew forth--the
whole manner of the man seemed to be mechanical, utterly at variance
with the fire and dash that ever characterized his performances. The
skill was there, but, for once, the soul was wanting. With the
exception of his hands and arms, he stood so still he might have been
a statue. He played as one in a trance, and his eyes with a fixed look
were ever directed towards the end of the apartment. Swifter and
swifter his arm flew backwards and forwards--more strange, eccentric,
and weird the music became--stronger in its expression, plainer in its
eloquence, more thrilling in its intensity, and ever exercising its
powerful spell on the hearer. At last, with a sort of impulse, I
turned my eyes from the player and looked in the direction he looked.
Suddenly the music changed. There was no lack of melody now. A soft,
soothing, haunting measure began--a sort of dreamy far-away tune; and
as its gentle cadences fell on my ear, hitherto kept in a state of
irritating, if not unpleasing, expectation, my thoughts began to
wander to old and half-forgotten scenes--distant events came to my
mind--recollections of vanished faces, once familiar, flocked around
me,--all things seemed growing misty and indistinct, and I felt as one
sinking into sleep--the sort of sleep that one can almost realize and
enjoy.

It was not to be, however. A few harsh notes from the fiddle, sounding
like a warning or admonition, recalled me to wakefulness; and as my
straying thoughts collected themselves, that lulling song began again.

And yet, if fully awake and conscious, where was I? The scene was
entirely changed; and although I knew I was still lying where I had at
first placed myself--although I could hear within a few feet of me the
unceasing melody of Luigi's violin--I was now looking into a strange
apartment, even as one looks into the representation of a room on the
stage; and I knew I was dreaming no dream. It could be none; for, as I
gazed, I felt a feeling of utter astonishment--and that feeling is
always absent from a dream, however marvellous its features may be.
Yet, lying there, and in as full possession of my faculties as I am at
the moment of writing these words, I saw, opened as it were before me,
a strange room, and one I could in no way connect with any chamber I
was in the habit of entering. It appeared to be a large, lofty
apartment and if I was looking at a vision, neither the room I nor its
belongings presented any appearance of unreality. The latter, indeed,
gave the idea of wealth and comfort. The furniture was after the
fashion of the early part of this century. The chairs were covered
with costly old brocade; and a short, square pianoforte--then the
highest type of the maker's art--stood open against one wall. And as,
with the sound of the violin ever near me, I noted these things and
waited for what was to come, I knew--although I did not attempt it--I
was utterly powerless to turn my eyes from the phantom scene before
me, even to ascertain whether it could be that Luigi saw the things I
saw.

Another change in the wonder-working music. A long rippling legato
passage, sweeping into a tender, passionate, pleading strain--the
eloquent notes speaking of joy and fear mingled. As my heart followed
and understood the inspiration of the musician, I whispered to myself,
"This is love." As if in answer to my thoughts, the door of the
phantom room opened, and two figures entered--a lady and a gentleman.
Both wore the dresses of that period to which I have assigned the date
of the furniture, and both were young. Like the objects around them,
there was nothing in their appearance ghost-like or supernatural.
Their limbs looked as firm and round as my own. It was some little
time before I could take my eyes from the girl. She was supremely
beautiful--tall and fair, with a delicate, refined face; and the robe
she wore plainly showed the exquisite proportions of her figure. Her
companion was handsome, and his features wore an expression of
melancholy pride. I noticed he carried under his left arm a violin,
and something told me he was a Frenchman. With great courtesy he led
the girl to a seat, and, as if in obedience to a request of hers,
commenced playing the instrument. Still the same sweet strain fell on
my ears; but a stranger thing than any I had yet noticed was that, as
he played, the sound seemed to come from his violin, and Luigi's was
dumb. And as he played, the girl looked up at him with admiring eyes.
He ceased at last, and Luigi's fiddle immediately resumed the melody,
without a moment's break. Then I saw the phantom place the violin and
bow in the girl's hands, instructing her how to hold them; and I knew
that during the lesson, his voice as well as his eyes made avowal of
his passionate love. I saw his fingers linger on hers as he placed
them on the strings; I saw the blush deepen upon her cheek, the lashes
droop over her downcast eyes, and then I saw him lean over and press
his lips to the fair white hand holding the bow; whilst the music near
me, sinking almost to silence, and tremulous as if a man's future lay
on those vibrating strings, told me he sought his fate at her lips. He
threw himself at her feet, and I saw the girl bend over him, and
placing her arms around his neck, kiss his forehead, whilst high and
loud rose the song of sweet triumph from those impassioned chords,
doubtful of her love no longer.

Again the strain changed--a song of love no longer: a few notes of
warning, melting into a strain that foretold and spoke of sorrow.
Again I saw the door of the apartment open, and, with a hasty step,
another man entered. He, too, was young and powerfully built, with an
intensely English face. Yet I could trace in his harder features a
resemblance, such as a brother might bear, to the girl before me. As
he entered, the lovers sprang to their feet; then, covering her face
with her hands, the girl sank upon a chair, whilst her companion faced
the new-comer with an air as haughty as his own, and words of
scorning, of contempt, of shaming, of defiance, were hurled from man
to man. True, I heard them not--all the phantasmagoria came before me
in dumb show; but the varied tones of the violin told me all that
passed between the two men as truly as though their voices smote upon
my ear; and, as the wild music culminated in a fierce crescendo of
thrilling power, the two men grappled in their rage, and the girl
sprang to her feet and ran wildly to the door. For a moment all grew
misty, and the phantom actors of my vision were hidden from my sight.
When they re-appeared I saw the young Frenchman quitting the room,
with blood trickling down his pale cheek, and as, with a look of
undying hate on his face, he closed the door behind him, the room and
all faded from my sight.

But no pause in the music; still those weird notes weaving the mystic
spell that chained me. Leaving me no time to reflect on what I had
seen, but enforcing my attention to the drama acted before me, the
fiery crescendo sank in a dull sullen theme, almost colourless when
compared with the foregoing numbers; then, as with dissolving views
where one scene grows through another that fades, I began to realize
that I looked into another room--one very different from the first. It
was evidently, from the slanting roof and small window, an attic, and
its contents spoke of poverty. A bed-stead with threadbare hangings
occupied one corner, and in the centre, at a square table littered
with sheets of music, sat the young Frenchman. His brow was
contracted, and the wound yet fresh on his cheek. He was writing, and
through the medium of the music I knew the purport of his epistle as
well as if I had looked over his shoulder. It was a challenge--a
challenge, he stated, his late antagonist dare not decline, as the
writer was of even more noble family than the man who had insulted
him. Having written the letter, he rose and paced the small room, deep
in thought. As his steps went backwards and forwards across the
limited space,--as his thoughts grew black with hate as he remembered
the insult he had suffered, or grew bright with love as he pictured
the fair girl who pledged herself to him,--so truthfully did the
delicate gradations of the music harmonize with them, that I could
feel every emotion stirring his heart, at times almost identifying
myself with him--making his joy, his sorrow, mine. After what seemed
to be hours, he took up the violin that lay on the table near him, and
commenced playing. As before, I say, the sound came from him, whether
Luigi's hands produced it or not; and as he played, the music, at
first, fierce, stern, and harsh gradually toned down until it became
dreamy and lulling--until at last he threw himself on his poor bed,
and Luigi's violin resumed the strain--the soft, soothing measure I
have before mentioned, telling of placid sleep.

Another change--hard, sharp, staccato passages. I was now looking--it
might be from a window--on a wide expanse of smooth green turf. As
before, the scene was so real, so material, that I might have stepped
out on the sward. There was nothing in the locality I could identify.
A wall and some palings, I remember, were on the left hand; a belt of
trees on the right. As I looked, I saw figures at some little
distance. Two men in their shirt-sleeves were engaged in a deadly
duel. They were not so far away but I could distinguish their features
plainly; and I knew they were the two men I had seen grapple in the
room. As their flashing blades, slender as serpents, twined in and
out; as they thrust and parried, advanced and retreated,--the
mysterious music entered fully into the fray, accompanying every
stroke, till, as the arm of one of the combatants sank to his side,
helpless--pierced by his antagonist's blade--it swelled to a strain of
exultation. It was the Englishman who was wounded; and as the sword
dropped from his grasp, his opponent with difficulty checked the
impulse urging him to drive his weapon through his unguarded breast;
then, seeing he was quite unable to renew the combat, bowed with cold
politeness, sheathed his sword, and turned away, leaving the wounded
man to the care of his second. As the Frenchman vanished from my sight
among the trees at the right hand, the scene grew blurred and faded--
only the spell of the music continued ever.

The dismal measure and the dismal garret once more. As I look at the
poverty-stricken room, the music, eloquent as before, in some hidden
manner makes me aware that months have passed since I last looked at
it. The young Frenchman is present. Indeed, I begin now to understand
that no scene can come beneath my eyes unless he be an actor in it. It
is his life, his love, the violin in its own marvellous tongue
relates. I wait with interest now. I have no time to wonder at or
speculate on what I have seen: no time to endeavour to explain the
phantom scenes and actors the song of the Stradivarius has brought
before me. I feel no fear--curiosity and excitement only. Luigi's
presence I have forgotten, so intent am I upon the drama played before
me.

The young man, I notice, is handsome as ever, but paler, thinner, and
careworn. What is the music saying now in that strange speech I can
interpret so readily? Poverty and hopelessness, loss of love, and with
that loss the wish to rise to fame.

He is writing; but the paper before him this time is a score--the
score of a work he once thought would hand his name down to future
times. Well I know, as I watch him, that music will never be given to
the world. I know it is night; and to kill his bitter thoughts he is
sitting down and working without interest at his uncompleted score. As
I watch him, grieving at his grief, weird and dreamy and unearthly
sounds Luigi's violin--bar after bar of the music monotonous and sad.
Then of a sudden it wakes to fresh life with a sort of expression of
keen surprise; and the young man raises his head from the work that
interests him no more, and the door of his poor dwelling opens. A few
bars of that haunting melody, that had caused me to whisper "this is
love," merge into a strain of plaintive hopelessness, and the fair
girl enters. She is closely veiled, and enveloped in a long dark
cloak, and as she raises the veil from her face and looks at him with
sad and wistful eyes, the man's heart responds to the impassioned
strings and vibrates with love, hopeless though it be. For I know that
ere two days are past she will wed another, and the man knows it, and,
crushing down his love, curses her in his heart for her faithlessness.
He stands helpless in his surprise at seeing her for a moment after
her entry, and then, with a grand air of calm politeness, handing her
to one of the crazy chairs that furnished his poor room, waits, with a
cold face, to learn the object of her visit. Then the woman--or the
music--pleads in pathetic strains for the pardon and forgiveness--
pleads the pressure put upon her by friends--pleads her utter
helplessness in their hands,--yet tells him, even with the wedding-
ring waiting to encircle her finger, that he alone, the exiled,
poverty-stricken Frenchman, owns the love her heart can give. And as
the tears fall from her eyes, the man waves his arm round the squalid
room, and showing with that gesture his utter poverty and
hopelessness, commends, with a bitter sneer, the course she has taken,
or been compelled to take, and asks how he could expect the daughter
of a noble English family to share such a home and such a lot as his.
I see the girl hesitate, falter, and tremble, and as she rises, the
man with a calm air and forced composure opens the door. Weeping
bitterly she leaves him; and as he closes the rickety door upon her, a
wail of music, more mournful than words can describe, lingers in the
air, bringing the tears to my eyes, and the man kneels down and kisses
the very boards on which her feet had rested.

With the mirthless smile upon his face he sits down thinking,
thinking; and the music, playing ever, gives me his thoughts. As I
read them I shudder, knowing how every fresh departure tends ever and
only to the same end--what has he to do with life any longer?--he the
last descendant of a noble French family, his sovereign an exile, his
lands and possessions confiscated or squandered, and now he lies
starving, or soon to be starving, in a London attic. Even the fame he
once hoped to win as a musician is far off; and if ever to be won, is
it worth struggling for? The past, to him, is full of agonizing
recollections of relatives and friends whose blood has slaked the
guillotine's thirst. The present is misery. The future, now that the
dream of love he had dared for a while to dream, is dispelled,
hopeless--what, indeed, has he to do with life any longer? If he knows
now how to live, at least he knows how to die.

Ever with the same dreary thoughts in his mind, I see him take the
bulky score, the result of months, it may be years, of labour, and
deliberately tear sheet after sheet to pieces, until the floor is
littered with the fragments. And as his action tells me he renounces
hope, love, and fame, I know I am fated to see an awful sight, but am
powerless to move my eyes from the scene. For yet the melancholy notes
sound; and I know until Luigi's hands are still, I am fettered by the
spell the music weaves. I am watching the man, or the phantom, with
concentrated interest. The last page of the score falls in tatters to
the ground, and seated still in the chair he had placed for the girl,
he stretches out his hand, seeking for something amongst the papers on
the table. Well I know the object he seeks--a small knife, with an
elaborately chased silver handle,--a relic, doubtless, of former
riches. Tomorrow even that would have been sold to provide the bare
necessities of the life he ceases to care for. He opens it, passes his
fingers across the keen edge, and removing his coat, turns up his
shirt-sleeve to the shoulder, and deliberately severs a large vein or
artery in his arm. Oh, that maddening music!--encouraging, tempting,
even applauding his crime of self destruction! I see, and sicken at
the sight, the first red rush of blood from his white arm; and then,
drip, drip, drip, follow the large quick-falling drops. So real, so
horrible is the vision, that I can even note the crimson pool forming
amid the tattered paper covering the floor. Will the fatal music never
end? Minutes are hours as I watch the face grow whiter and whiter as
the man sits bleeding to death. Now, whilst I long to faint and lose
the dreadful sight, he rises, and with tottering steps walks across
the room and takes up the violin. With the life-blood streaming from
his left arm, once more, and for the last time, he makes the
instrument speak; and again, I say, the music comes from him and not
from Luigi. As he plays, even whilst I wait for what must follow, I
know that such rare music was never heard on earth as the strain I
listen to--fancying the while I can see the eager wings of Death
hovering around the player. What can I compare it to? A poet would
term it the death-song of the swan. It is the death-song of a genius--
one whom the world never knew: whose own rash act has extinguished the
sacred flame. Strong and wild and wonderful rises the music, for a
while. Now it sinks lower, lower, and lower. Now it is so soft I can
scarcely hear it; it is ebbing to silence, even as the heart's-blood
is ebbing to death. The face grows ghastly; the head sinks upon the
breast; the eyes flicker like the dying flame of a candle; the violin
drops from the reddened hand, and the man falls sideways from his
chair to the ground, even as Luigi's violin completes the bar his fall
had broken off in the middle; and as its sums up the tragedy in one
long-sustained passage of hopeless grief, I see the bloodless, white
face of the man, now dead, or soon to be dead, lying on the ruddy
floor; whilst the left arm, motionless now, rests as it had fallen,
across the violin those nerveless fingers had at last been fain to
drop.

The music stopped--the spell was ended. So powerfully was I wrought
upon by the last vision I had seen, that the moment my limbs resumed
their freedom, I rushed forward and fell fainting on the very spot it
seemed to me the man had died. When I recovered consciousness, I found
Luigi bending over me, and sponging my face with cold water. He was
pale and agitated, and seemed scarcely able to stand from physical
exhaustion. I rose, and with a shudder looked towards that part of the
room where the phantasmagoria had appeared. Nothing was there to move
me now. The familiar wallpaper, the pictures I had so often scanned,
alone met my eye. As I gazed round, Luigi, in a whisper, asked---

"You saw it all, then, as I did?"

"I saw it all: could it have been a dream?"

He shook his head. "If so, three times have I dreamed it, and each
time alike in every detail. The first time, I said, 'It must be a
dream'; the second time, 'It may be fancy.' But what can I say now,
when another sees it also?"

I could give him no answer--I could offer no explanation--only, I
asked---

"Why did you not cease playing, and spare me that last sight?"

"I could not. It was your impulse to play on that violin, when first
you saw it, led me to think its strange power would act on another
besides myself, and induced me to go through it all once more. But it
will tell its story to no one else."

I turned inquiringly, and seeing on the carpet a mass of small
splinters of wood, mixed with tangled strings and pegs, knew what he
meant. This, then, was the end of the masterpiece of Stradivarius.

"And you mean to say you had no power to cease when once you began?--
were compelled to play through the whole tragedy?"

"I had no power to stop. Some force irresistible compelled me. I was
but an instrument; and absurd as it seems, I believe that you, with no
knowledge of the art, would have played just as I did."

"But the music?" I asked. "The wonderful music?"

"That to me," replied Luigi, "is the strangest thing of all. Neither
you nor I can recall a single bar of it. Even those two or three
melodies, which, as we heard them, we thought would haunt us, have
vanished."

And it was so. Try how I would, I could fashion no tune at all like
them.

"It bears out what I told you," said Luigi, in conclusion. "I was
simply an instrument. Indeed it seemed the whole time not I, but
another was playing. But here is an end of it."

Then, late as the hour was, we kindled a small fire, and consumed
every atom of the violin, which held, in some mysterious, inexplicable
way, the story of man's love and death.

We parted at last. Luigi left England as arranged, and has not yet
revisited it.

Is there any sequel to my incredible story? None that will throw any
light upon it, or enable me--as, indeed, I have little hope--to win
the reader's belief. Only, some time afterwards, I saw in the house of
a man,--known by name at least to all who are familiar with the titles
of the great ones of the land,--the portrait of a lady. It was that of
his mother, who had died a few years after her marriage; and if the
painters skill had not erred, it was also the portrait of the phantom-
woman I had seen twice that night in the visions the weird music
brought before me. Every feature was so stamped upon my memory, I
could not be mistaken. And yet I did not trouble to inquire into her
private history. Even if I could have learnt it, it could tell me no
more than I knew already. The history of her love and its tragic
ending--doubtless a sealed page in her life--had been fully displayed
to me as I lay in Luigi's room listening to the varying strains of the
haunted Stradivarius.



THE END


Project Gutenberg Australia