always parties after the play. He could play in those days, ay, that
he could! He could never read the notes well, so he did not play
first; but his touch, he had a touch indeed, so Herr Mikilsdoff, who
led the orchestra, had said. Sometimes now Peter thought he could
plow better if he could only bow as he used to. He had seen all the
lovely women in the world there, all the great singers and the great
players. He was in the orchestra when Rachel played, and he heard
Liszt play when the Countess d’Agoult sat in the stage box and threw
the master white lilies. Once, a French woman came and played for
weeks, he did not remember her name now. He did not remember her
face very well either, for it changed so, it was never twice the
same. But the beauty of it, and the great hunger men felt at the
sight of it, that he remembered. Most of all he remembered her
voice. He did not know French, and could not understand a word she
said, but it seemed to him that she must be talking the music of
Chopin. And her voice, he thought he should know that in the other
world. The last night she played a play in which a man touched her
arm, and she stabbed him. As Peter sat among the smoking gas jets
down below the footlights with his fiddle on his knee, and looked up
at her, he thought he would like to die too, if he could touch her
arm once, and have her stab him so. Peter went home to his wife very
drunk that night. Even in those days he was a foolish fellow, who
cared for nothing but music and pretty faces.
It was all different now. He had nothing to drink and little to eat,
and here, there was nothing but sun, and grass, and sky. He had
forgotten almost everything, but some things he remembered well
enough. He loved his violin and the holy Mary, and above all else he
feared the Evil One, and his son Antone.
The fire was low, and it grew cold. Still Peter sat by the fire
remembering. He dared not throw more cobs on the fire; Antone would
be angry. He did not want to cut wood tomorrow, it would be Sunday,
and he wanted to go to mass. Antone might let him do that. He held
his violin under his wrinkled chin, his white hair fell over it, and
he began to play “Ave Maria.” His hand shook more than ever before,
and at last refused to work the bow at all. He sat stupefied for a
while, then arose, and taking his violin with him, stole out into
the old sod stable. He took Antone’s shot-gun down from its peg, and
loaded it by the moonlight which streamed in through the door. He
sat down on the dirt floor, and leaned back against the dirt wall.
He heard the wolves howling in the distance, and the night wind
screaming as it swept over the snow. Near him he heard the regular
breathing of the horses in the dark. He put his crucifix above his
heart, and folding his hands said brokenly all the Latin he had ever
known, ”
and sighed, “Not one kreutzer will Antone pay them to pray for my
soul, not one kreutzer, he is so careful of his money, is Antone, he
does not waste it in drink, he is a better man than I, but hard
sometimes. He works the girls too hard, women were not made to work
so. But he shall not sell thee, my fiddle, I can play thee no more,
