XV
Little Lady
Up in the attic, Iris sat beside the old trunk, her lap filled with papers. Never had she felt so alone, so desolate as to-day. The rain beat upon the roof and grey swirls of water dashed against the pane. The old house rocked in the rising wind, and from below, like an eerie accompaniment, came the sound of Lynn’s violin.
He was practising, and Iris heard him walking back and forth, playing with mechanical precision. She shuddered at the sound of it, for, strangely enough, she was conscious of bitter resentment against Lynn. His hand had destroyed her dream and levelled it to the dust. In the darkness, she had leaned, insensibly, upon the writer of the letters, and now she knew that it was only Lynn – Lynn, who had no heart.
There comes a time to most of us, when the single prop gives way and, absolutely alone, we either stand or fall. In the hard school of life, sooner or later, one learns self-reliance. Iris began to perceive that, in the end, she could depend upon no one but herself.
With a sigh, she turned to the papers once more. There was the report of the detective whom Aunt Peace had engaged at the beginning, voluminous, and obscured by legal phrases. Two or three letters, bearing upon the subject, were attached to it. In the bottom of the box were a wide, showy band of gold which, presumably, had been her mother’s wedding ring, and two photographs.
One was of a man whose weakness was indelibly stamped upon every feature – the low, narrow forehead, the eyes slanting inward, the full lips, and receding chin. On the back of it, Aunt Peace had written: “Supposed to be her father.” Looking at it, Iris wondered how her mother could have cared for a man like that – weak and frankly sensuous. Yet there was an air of gay carelessness about the picture, a sort of friendly camaraderie, distantly related to those genial ways which stamp a higher grade of man as “a good fellow.”
Over the other photograph, she lingered long. The first Iris Temple was pictured in the panoply of a stage queen. The crown of paste brilliants upon her head, the tawdry gown, elaborately trimmed with tinsel, and the gilded sceptre were all discredited by the face. Beneath its mask of artificiality was a woman, a very human woman, impulsive, eager, and loving, whose trustful eyes looked straight at Iris with intimate comprehension. Plainly, the life of the stage was not to her taste; she hungered, as every normal woman hungers, for the quiet hearthstone and the simple joys of home.
In all her dreams of her mother, Iris had never imagined her like this, and yet she was not disappointed. At times, looking back upon her miserable childhood, she had bitterly blamed her for it, but now, for the first time, she understood. “Poor little mother,” said Iris, “you did the very best you could.”
If things had been different, she and her mother could have had a little home of their own. Rebellion was hot in the girl’s heart, when she suddenly remembered something Fräulein Fredrika had said long ago. “Wherever one may be, that is the best place. The dear God knows.”
She folded up the papers and put them back in the box, with the photographs and the wedding ring. For the moment, she wondered what her real name might be, for Iris Temple was only a stage name. Then she dismissed the matter as of no importance, for she certainly would not care to bear the name of the man who had deserted her mother in her hour of need.
She wondered why Aunt Peace had never given her the papers before, but, after all, what good could it have done? What had she gained by it, even now? In a flash of insight, she saw that she had been given a feeling of definite relationship with the woman in the tawdry stage trappings, who had loved much and suffered more – that though an old grave divided them, she was not quite motherless, not quite alone. For the first time since Aunt Peace was stricken with the fever, balm came into the girl’s sore heart.
Below, Lynn played unceasingly. “Four hours a day,” thought Iris. “One sixth of life – and for what?”
Lynn was asking himself the same question. “For what?” Ambition was strong within him, but Herr Kaufmann’s words had struck deep. “I will be an artist!” he said to himself, passionately; “I will!” He worked feverishly at his concerto, but his mind was not upon it. He was thinking of Iris and of the unconscious scorn in her face when she discovered that he had written the letters.
He put down his violin and meditated, as many a man in that very room had done before him, upon the problem of the eternal feminine. Iris was incomprehensible. He knew that the letters had not displeased her; that, on the contrary, she had been unusually happy when they came. He remembered also that moonlight night, when, safely screened by the shrubbery across the street, he had seen her put the flower upon the gate-post and as swiftly take it away. He had loved her all the more for that quick impulse, that shame-faced retreat, and put the memory securely away in his heart, biding his time.
“Iris,” he asked, at luncheon, “will you go for a walk with me this afternoon?”
“No,” she returned, shortly.
“Why not? It isn’t too wet, is it?”
“I’m going by myself. I prefer to be alone.”
Lynn coloured and said nothing more. In the afternoon, while he was at work, he saw her trip daintily down the path, lifting her skirts to avoid the pools of water the Summer shower had left. He watched her until she was no longer within range of his vision, then went back to his violin.
Iris had no definite errand except to the post-office, where, as usual, there was nothing, but it rested her to be outdoors. It is Nature’s unfailing charm that she responds readily to every mood, and ultimately brings extremes to a common level of quiet cheerfulness.
She leaned over the bridge and looked into the stream, where her own face was mirrored. She saw herself sad and old, a woman of mature years, still further aged by trouble. What had become of the happy girl of a few months ago?
The thought of Lynn recurred persistently, and always with repulsion. What should she do? She could not wholly ignore him, year in and year out, and live in the same house. It must be nearly time for him to go away and leave her in peace.
Then Iris gasped, for it was Lynn’s house, – his and his mother’s. She was there upon sufferance only – a guest? No, not a guest – an intruder, an interloper.
In her new trouble, she thought of Herr Kaufmann, always gentle, always wise. With Iris, action followed swiftly upon impulse, and she went rapidly up the hill. Fräulein Fredrika was out, but the Master was in the shop, so she went in at the lower door.
“So,” he said, kindly, “one little lady comes to see the old man. It is long since you have come.”
“I have been in trouble,” faltered Iris.
“Yes,” returned the Master, “I have heard. Mine heart has been very sorry for you.”
“It was lovely of you,” she went on, choking back a sob, “to come and play for us. We appreciated it – Mrs. Irving and I – Doctor Brinkerhoff – and – Lynn,” she added, grudgingly.
“The Herr Irving,” said the Master, with interest, “he has appreciated mine playing?”
“Of course – we all did.”
“Mine pupil progresses,” he remarked, enigmatically.
“Was it,” began Iris, hesitating over the words, – “was it the Cremona?”
The Master looked at her sharply. “Yes, why not? One gives one’s best to Death.”
“Death demands it, and takes it,” said the girl. “That is why.”
She spoke bitterly, and Herr Kaufmann put down the violin he was working upon. His heart went out to Iris, white-faced and ghostly, her eyes burning fiercely. He saw that her hands were trembling, and, moving his chair closer, he took them both in his.
“Little lady,” he said, “it makes mine old heart ache to see you so close with sorrow. If it could be divided, I would take mine share, because these broad shoulders are used to one heavy burden, and a little more would not matter so much, but one must learn, even though the cross is very hard to bear.
“It is most difficult, and yet some day you will see. You have only to look out of your window for one year to understand it all. First it is Winter, and the snow is deep upon the ground. All the flowers are dead, and there are no birds. The moon shines cold, and there are many storms. But, so slow that you can never see it, there is change. Presently, the bare branches turn in their sleep and wake up with leaves. The birds come back, and all the earth is glad again.
“Then everything grows and it is all in one blossom. On the wide fields there is much grain, and all hearts are singing. Even after the frost, everything is glad for a little while, and then, very slowly, it is Winter once more.
“Little lady, do you not see? There must always be Winter, there must always be night and storm and cold. It is then that the flowers rest – they cannot always be in bloom. But somewhere on the great world the sun is always shining, and, just so sure as you live, it will sometime shine on you. The dear God has made it so. There is so much sun and so much storm, and we must have our share of both. It is Winter in your heart now, but soon it will be Spring. You have had one long Summer, and there must be something in between. We are not different from all else the dear God has made. It is all in one law, as the Herr Doctor will tell you. He is most wise, and he has helped me to understand.”
“But Aunt Peace!” sobbed the girl. “Aunt Peace is dead, and mother, too! I am all alone!”
“Little lady,” said the Master, very tenderly, “you must never say you are alone. Because you have had much love, shall you be a child when it is taken away? Has it meant so little to you that it leaves nothing? Just so strong and beautiful as it has been, just so much strength and beauty does it leave. There are many, in this world, who would be so glad to change places with you. To be dead,” he went on, bitterly, “that is nothing beside one living grave! It is by far the easier loss!”
He left her and went to the window, where he stood for a long time with his back toward her. Then Iris perceived her own selfishness, and she crept up beside him, slipping her cold little hand into his. “I understand,” she said, gently, “you have had sorrow, too.”
The Master smiled, but she saw that his eyes were wet. “Yes,” he sighed, “I know mine sorrow. We are old friends.” Then he stooped and kissed her, ever so softly, upon her forehead. It was like a benediction.
“I think,” she said, after a little, “that I must go away from East Lancaster.”
“So? And why?”
Iris knit her brows thoughtfully. “Well,” she explained, “I have no right here. The house is Mrs. Irving’s, and after her it belongs to Lynn. Aunt Peace said it was to be my home while I lived, but that was only because she did not want to turn me out. She was too kind to do that, but I do not belong there.”
“The Herr Irving,” said the Master, in astonishment. “Does he want you to go away?”
“No! No!” cried Iris. “Don’t misunderstand! They have said nothing – they have been lovely to me – but I can’t help feeling – ”
The Master nodded. “Yes, I see. Perhaps you will come to live with mine sister and me. The old house needs young faces and the sound of young feet. Mine house,” he said, with quiet dignity, “is very large.”
Even in her perplexity, Iris wondered why the little bird-house on the brink of the cliff always seemed a mansion to its owner. Quickly, he read her thought.
“I know what you are thinking,” he continued; “you are thinking that mine house is small. Three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs. Fredrika could sleep in mine room, and I could take the store closet back of mine shop and keep the wood for the violins at the Herr Doctor’s. Upstairs, you could have one bedroom and one parlour. Fredrika and I would come up only to eat.”
“Herr Kaufmann,” cried Iris, her heart warming to him, “it is lovely of you, but I can’t. Don’t you see, if I could stay anywhere I could stay where I am?”
It was not a clear sentence, but he grasped its meaning. “Yes, I see. But when I say mine house is large, it is not of these six rooms that I think. Have you not read in the good book that in mine Father’s house there are many mansions? So? Well, it is in those mansions that I live. I have put aside mine sorrow, and I wait till the dear God is pleased to take me home.”
“To take us home,” said Iris, thoughtfully. “Perhaps Aunt Peace was tired.”
“Yes,” answered the Master, “she was tired. Otherwise, she would have been allowed to stay. You have not been thinking of her, but of yourself.”
“Perhaps I have,” she admitted.
“If you go away,” he went on, “it is better that you should study. You have one fine voice, and with sorrow in your heart, you can make much from it. Those who have been made great have first suffered.”
Iris turned upon him. “You mean that?” she asked, sharply.
“Of course,” he returned, serenely. “Before you can help those who have suffered, you must suffer yourself. It is so written.”
Iris sighed heavily. “I must go,” she said, dully.
“Not yet. Wait.”
He went to his bedroom, and came back with a violin case. He opened it carefully; unwrapped the many thicknesses of silk, and took out the Cremona. “See,” he said, with his face aglow, “is it not most beautiful? When you are sad, you can remember that you have seen mine Cremona.”
“Thank you,” returned Iris, her voice strangely mingled with both laughter and tears, “I will remember.”
When she went home, the Master looked after her for a moment or two, then turned away from the window to wipe his eyes. He was drawn by temperament to all who sorrowed, and he had loved Iris for years.
That night, she sat alone in the library, sheltered by the darkness. Margaret was reading in her own room, and Lynn was out. More clearly than ever, Iris saw that she must go away. She had no definite plan, but Herr Kaufmann’s suggestion seemed a good one.
When Lynn came in, he lit the candles in the parlour. Iris hoped he would go upstairs without coming into the library, but he did not. She shrank back into her chair, trusting that he would not see her, but with unerring instinct he went straight to her.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “are you here?”
“I’m here,” said Iris, frostily, “but that isn’t my name.”
The timid little voice thrilled him with a great tenderness, and he quickly possessed himself of her hand. “Iris, darling,” he went on, “why do you avoid me? I have been miserable ever since I told you I wrote the letters.”
“It was wrong to write them,” she said.
“Why, dear?”
“Because.”
“Didn’t you like them?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you were displeased.” He was too chivalrous to remind her of that moonlight night.
“It was very wrong,” she repeated, stubbornly.
“Then forgive me.”
“It’s nothing to me,” she returned, unmoved.
“I hoped it would be,” said Lynn, gently. “Every time, I walked over to the next town to mail them. I knew you hadn’t seen any of my writing, and I was sure you wouldn’t suspect me.”
“Nice advantage to take of a girl, wasn’t it?” demanded Iris, her temper rising.
She rose and started toward the door, but Lynn kept her back. The starlight showed him her face, white and troubled. “Sweetheart,” he said, “listen. Just a moment, dear – that isn’t much to ask, is it? If it was wrong to write the letters, then I ask you to forgive me, but every word was true. I love you, Iris – I love you with all my heart.”
“With all your heart,” she repeated, scornfully. “You have no heart!”
“Iris,” he said, unsteadily, “what do you mean?”
“This,” she cried, in a passion. “You have no more feeling than the ground beneath your feet! Haven’t I seen, haven’t I known? Aunt Peace died, and you did not care – you only thought it was unpleasant. You play like a machine, a mountebank. Tricks with the violin – tricks with words! And yet you dare to say you love me!”
“Iris! Darling!” cried Lynn, stung to the quick. “Don’t!”
“Once for all I will have my say. To-morrow I go out of your house forever. I have no right here, no place. I am an intruder, and I am going away. You will never see me again, never as long as you live. You, a machine, a clod, a trickster, a thing without a heart – you shall not insult me again!”
White to the lips, trembling like a leaf, Iris shook herself free and ran up to her room.
Lynn drew a long, shuddering breath. “God!” he whispered, clenching his hands tightly. “God!”
XVI
Afraid of Life
She kept her word. To Mrs. Irving she merely said that she had already trespassed too long upon their hospitality, and that she thought it best to go away. She had talked with Herr Kaufmann, and he had advised her to go to the city and have her voice trained. Yes, she would write, and would always think of them kindly.
Lynn, who had passed the first sleepless night of his life, went to the train with her, but few words were spoken. Iris was cool, dignified, and cruelly formal. An immeasurable distance lay between them, and one, at least, made no effort to lessen it.
They had only a few minutes to wait, and, just as the train came in sight, Lynn bent over her. “Iris,” he said, unsteadily, “if you ever want me, will you promise me that you will let me know?”
“Yes,” she replied, with an incredulous laugh, “if I ever want you, I will let you know.”
“I will go to you,” said Lynn, struggling for his self-control, “from the very end of the world. Just send me the one word: ‘Come.’ And let me thank you now for all the happiness you have given me, and for the memory of you, which I shall have in my heart for always.”
“You are quite welcome,” she returned, frigidly. “You – ” but the roar of the train mercifully drowned her words.
The sun still shone, the birds did not cease their singing. Outwardly, the world was just as fair, even though Iris had gone. Lynn walked away blindly, no longer dull, but keenly alive to his hurt.
From the crucible of Eternity, Time, the magician, draws the days. Some are wholly made of beauty; of wide sunlit reaches and cool silences. Some of dreams and twilight, with roses breathing fragrance through the dusk. Some of darkness, wild and terrible, lighted only by a single star. Others still of riving lightnings and vast, reverberating thunders, while the heart, swelled to bursting, breaks on the reef of Pain.
It seemed as though Lynn’s heart were rising in an effort to escape. “I must keep it down,” he thought. It was like an imprisoned bird, cut, bruised, and bleeding, beating against the walls of flesh. And yet, there was a hand upon it, and the iron fingers clutched unmercifully.
Iris had gone, and the dream was at an end. Iris had gone, flouting him to the last, calling his love an insult. “Machine – clod – mountebank” – the bitter words rang through his consciousness again and again.
It might be true, part of it at least. Herr Kaufmann had told him, more than once, that he played like a machine. Clod? Possibly. Mountebank? That might be, too. Trickster with the violin, trickster with words? Perhaps. But a thing without a heart? Lynn laughed bitterly and put his hand against his breast to quiet the throbbing.
No one knew – no one must ever know. Iris would not betray him, he was sure of that, but he must be on his guard lest he should betray himself. He must hide it, must keep on living, and appear to be the same. His mother’s keen eyes must see nothing amiss. Fortunately, he could be alone a great deal – outdoors, or practising, and at night. He shuddered at the white night through which he had somehow lived, and wondered how many more would follow in its train.
Suddenly, he remembered that it was his lesson day, and he was not prepared. Common courtesy demanded that he should go up to Herr Kaufmann’s, and tell him that he did not feel like taking his lesson – that he had a headache, or something of the kind – that he had hurt his wrist, perhaps.
He hoped that Fräulein Fredrika would come to the door, and that he might leave his message with her, but it was Herr Kaufmann who answered his ring.
“So,” said the Master, “you are once more late.”
“No,” answered Lynn, refusing to meet his eyes, “I just came to tell you that I couldn’t take my lesson to-day. I don’t think,” he stammered, “that I can ever take any more lessons.”
“And why?” demanded the Master. “Come in!”
Before he realised it, he was in the parlour, gay with its accustomed bright colours. One look at Lynn’s face had assured Herr Kaufmann that something was wrong, and, for the first time, he was drawn to his pupil.
“So,” said the Master. “Mine son, is it not well with you?”
Lynn turned away to hide the working of his face. “Not very,” he answered in a low tone.
“Miss Iris,” said the Master, “she will have gone away?”
It was like the tearing of a wound. “Yes,” replied Lynn, almost in a whisper, “she went this morning.”
“And you are sad because she has gone away? I am sorry mineself. Miss Iris is one little lady.”
“Yes,” returned Lynn, clenching his hands, “she is.”
Something in the boy’s eyes stirred an old memory, and made the Master’s heart very tender toward him. “Mine son,” he said very gently, “if something has troubled you, perhaps it will give you one relief to tell me. Only yesterday Miss Iris was here. She was very sad when she came, and when she went away the world was more sunny, or so I think.”
Quickly surmising that Herr Kaufmann had something more than a hint of it, and more eager for sympathy than he realised, Lynn stammered out the story, choking at the end of it.
There was a long silence, in which the Master went back twenty-five years. Lynn’s eyes, so full of trouble, were they not like another’s, long ago? The organ-tone of the thunder once more reverberated through the forest, where the great boughs arched like the nave of a cathedral, and the dead leaves scurried in fright before the rising wind.
“That is all,” said the boy, his face white to the lips. “It is not much, but it is a great deal to me.”
“So,” said the Master, scornfully, “you are to be an artist and you are afraid of life! You are summoned to the ranks of the great and you shrink from the signal – cover your ears, that you shall not hear the trumpet call! This, when you should be on your knees, thanking the good God that at last He has taught you pain!”
Lynn’s face was pitiful, and yet he listened eagerly.
“There is no half-way point,” the Master was saying; “if you take it, you must pay. Nothing in this world is free but the sun and the fresh air. You must buy shelter, food, clothing, with the work of your hands and brain. If someone else gives it to you, it is not yours – you are one parasite. You must earn it all.
“You think you can take all, and give nothing? It is not so. For six, eight years now, you study the violin. You learn the scales, the technique, the good wrist, and nothing else. I teach you all I can, but it must come from yourself, not me. I can only guide – tell you when you have made one mistake.
“What is it that the art is for? Is it for one great assembly of people to pay the high price for admission? ‘See,’ they say, ‘this young man, what good tone he has, what bowing, what fine wrist! How smooth he plays his concerto! When it is marked fortissimo, see how he plays fortissimo! It is most skilful!’ Is the art for that? No!
“It is for everyone in the world who has known trouble to be lifted up and made strong. They care nothing for the means, only for the end. They have no eyes for the fine bowing, the good wrist – what shall they know of technique? And yet you must have the technique, else you cannot give the message.
“Everyone that hears has had his own sorrow. None of them are new ones, they are all old, and so few that one person can suffer all. It is for you to take that, to know the hurt heart and the rebellious soul, so that you can comfort, lift up, and make noble with your art.
“And you – you cry out when you should be glad. Miss Iris does not love you, and beyond that you do not see. Suppose one thousand people were before you, and all had loved someone who did not care for them. Could you make it easier if you knew nothing of it by yourself?
“Listen. On a hill in Italy there was once a tree. It was a seed at the beginning, a seed you could hold with the ends of your fingers, so. It was buried in the ground, covered up with earth like something that had died. Do you think the seed liked that?
“But is it afraid, when its heart is swelling? No! It breaks through, with the great hurt. Still there is earth around it, still it is buried, but yet it aspires. One day it comes to the surface of the ground, and once more it breaks through, with pain.
“But the sun is bright and warm, and the seed grows. Careless feet trample upon it – there is yet one more hurt. But it straightens, waits through the long nights for the blessed sun, and so on, until it is so high as one bush.
“Constantly, there is growing, one aspiration upward. Bark comes and the tree swells outward, always with pain. Someone cuts off all the lower branches, and the tree bleeds, yet keeps on. Other branches come thick about it; there is one struggle, but through the dense growth the tree climbs, always upward. In the sun above the thick shade, it can laugh at the ache and the thorns, but it does not forget.
“And so, upward, always upward, till it is lifted high above its fellows. Birds come there to sing, to build their nests, to rear their young, to mourn when one little bird falls out from the nest and is made dead.
“The sun shines fiercely, and it nearly dies in the heat. The storm comes and it is shrouded in ice – made almost to die with the cold. The wild winds rock it and tear off the branches, making it bleed – there must always be pain. The thunders play over its head, the lightnings burn it, and yet its heart lives on. The rains beat upon it like one river, and still it grows.
“The years go by and each one brings new hurt, but the tree is made hard and strong. One day there comes a man to look at it, all the straight fine length, the smooth trunk. ‘It will do,’ he says, and with his axe he chops it down. Do you think it does not hurt the tree? After the long years of fighting, to be cut like that?
“Then it falls, crashing heavy through the branches to the ground. See, there must always be pain, even at the end. Then more cutting, more bleeding, more heat, more cold. Fine tools – steel knives that tear and split the fibres apart. Do you think it does not hurt? More sun, more cold, still more cutting, tearing, and throwing aside. Then, one day, it is finished, and there is mine Cremona – all the strength, all the beauty, all the pain, made into mine violin!
“But the end is not yet. God is working with me and mine as well as with mine instrument. As yet, I do not know that it is for me – it comes to me through pain.
“One old gentleman, one of the first to travel abroad from this country for pleasure, he goes to Italy, he finds it in the hands of one ignorant drunkard, and he buys it for little. He brings it home, but he cannot play, and no one else can play; he does not know its value, but it pleases him and he takes it. For long years, it stays in one attic, with the dust and the cobwebs, kicked aside by careless feet.
“Meanwhile, I know one lovely young lady. I meet her by chance, and we like each other, oh, so much! ‘Franz,’ she says to me, ‘you live on one hill in West Lancaster, and mine mother, she would never let me speak with you, so I must see you sometimes, quite by accident, elsewhere. On pleasant days, I often go to walk in the woods. Mine mother likes me to be outdoors.’ So, many times, we meet and we talk of strange things. Each day we love each other more, and all the time her mother does not suspect. We plan to go away together and never let anyone know until we are married and it is too late, but first I must find work.
“‘Franz,’ she says to me one day, ‘up in mine attic there is one old violin, which I think must be valuable. Mine mother is away with a friend and the house is by itself. Will you not come up to see?’
“So we go, and the house is very quiet. No one is there. We go like two thieves to the attic, laughing as though we were children once more. Presently we find the violin, and I see that it is one Cremona, very old, very fine, but with no strings. I fit on some strings that I have in mine pocket, but there is no bow and I can only play pizzicato. I need to hear the tone but one moment to know what it is that I have. ‘It is most wonderful,’ I say, and then the door opens and one very angry lady stands there.
“She tells me that I shall never come into that house again, that I must go right away, that I have no – what do you say? – no social place, and that I am not to speak with her daughter. To her she says: ‘I will attend to you very soon.’ We creep down the stairs together and mine Beloved whispers: ‘Every day at four, at the old place, until I come.’ I understand and I go away, but mine heart is very troubled for her.
“For long days I wait, and every day, at four, I am at the meeting-place in the wood, but no one comes, and there is no message, no word. All the time I feel as you feel now because Miss Iris has gone away and does not care. I wait and wait, but I can get no news, and I fear to go to the house because I shall perhaps harm mine Beloved, and she has told me what to do. Every day I am there, even in the rain, waiting.
“At last she comes, with the violin under her arm, wrapped in her coat. ‘I have only one minute,’ she cries; ‘they are going to take me away, and we can never see each other again. So I give you this. You must keep it, and when you are sad it will tell you how much I love you, how much I shall always love you. You will not forget me,’ she says. There is just one instant more together, with the thunders and the lightnings all around us, then I am alone, except for mine violin.
“Do you not see? There must always be pain. The dear God has made mine instrument, and in the same way He has made me, with the cutting and the bruises and the long night. I, too, have known the storm and all the fury of the winds and rain. Like the tree, I have aspired, I have grown upward, I have done the best I could. Otherwise, I should not be fitted to play on mine Cremona – I would not deserve to touch it, and so, in a way, I am glad.