My mouth and ears seemed to be two personalities, the latter being very much surprised to hear the English language in this town of “skis” and “ovitches,” and the former very defiant and determined. It said slowly, “I shan’t give up now; I surely will find Mr. W⸺y.” I lifted my eyes with a sigh and lo! strange mockery of this cynical quarter, there, precisely opposite, on a black sign with staring gilt letters was the very name which had so persistently and so successfully eluded me: “H. W⸺y, violinist, concerts, lessons.”
I went up the two white steps, the sepulchral steps which can never be omitted from the meanest tenement of old Philadelphia, and rapped loudly and long. A woman with bright red cheeks and a mass of curly auburn hair bushing astonishingly about her head, admitted me.
“Mr. W⸺y was in. Walk up.” Bless him for being “in,” I thought, as I climbed the steep, dark stairs; “my luck must have turned at last.” The woman had left me to guide myself, only directing me to the first door on the left. As I stepped into the upper hall I heard a low cry, something neither human nor unhuman, that made me catch my breath. There were two or three wails, and then a sob was broken short; then the cries began in a lower key. I felt as if a cold wind had suddenly blown over me a frozen me to the floor. This, then, was the wonderful violin, this thing which cried and moaned just inside the room. I must have stood ten minutes listening when I felt someone behind me, and turned to hear the woman say, “Just rap, he’s only playing by himself.”
“Does he often do it—play like that?” I whispered under my breath.
She smiled; “All the time. The worst is, he gets up in the night. You’d think dead folks were crying in the room. Some people believe dead folks do play music, but I don’t,” she added, knocking on the door.
The wailing ceased as if the thing which cried had been startled and fled. Directly the door was opened and I was invited to enter. The room was neither small nor large, but oh! so bare! There was only a bed without pillows, a chair, a trunk, a table contrived from a dry-goods box, a stand piled high with books—over which lay the violin—and a music rack, back of which, on the floor, lay a mass of music. No heat, and the temperature dangerously near the freezing point. What wonder the violin wailed!
I see the whole picture now as it was photographed upon my memory by the cloudy, snow-luminous light that came through the curtainless windows, striking the staring walls and dark wood floor, and the tall figure in the center holding the magical bow. Certainly it was a homely face, one of the homeliest I have ever seen, in spite of the fine, Beethoven-like forehead that relieved it from any charge of stupidity.
Yet this very ugliness was curiously attractive. The square, prominent jaw with the wide, thin-lipped mouth was a character study; those small, light-intent eyes fascinated; and the Tartar nose, utterly ugly, somehow impressed one as having an individuality of its own that might, on occasion, express itself.
“I interrupted you,” said I, by way of beginning—“it is too bad. I had been luxuriating in the misery of those notes for nearly a quarter of an hour in the hall.”
He flushed slightly; “You should have knocked; I was merely passing time.”
“Was it an improvisation?” I inquired, curious to know what human heart had first cried so brokenly.
“Oh, no,” he answered, “it is a composition, the plea of a nihilist, a Siberian exile, to his jailer. There are words.”
“Ah,” I said, with interest, “do such compositions circulate generally, then?”
A real laugh went over the ugly mouth, and yet a laugh with more of sarcasm than pleasure in it.
“Certainly not. It is a prison offense to sing them. All the same there are means.”
“But,” I suggested, “are they not dangerous? Were you not afraid to—to become implicated with the nihilists?”
He drew himself up proudly. “I myself was one.”
“What,” I exclaimed, “you! A man with a soul for such music, can you believe in killing people? Do you think the czar should be assassinated?”
The same sarcastic smile crossed his mouth. “Why should he not be assassinated? Thousands of people die every year merely for his pleasure. Is he any better than other murderers?”
“What do you mean by saying that thousands of people die for his pleasure? He does not kill anybody.”
“I mean that the poor are taxed so high to pay for his palaces, that they die in their huts. Yes, I would be very glad to hear that the czar was killed, but not because I think it would help anyone living.”
“Why then?” I queried, interested in the play of the ugly features.
“Why? Because it would be a crash that would make the people think. They do not think, they are asleep. Their bodies work, but their brains have never yet awakened. Another czar would come, and he, too, would have to be killed, until the people learn that it not to trade masters, but to have no masters they must work.”
“But,” I persisted, “why not in some other way? Why kill to teach them that?” He sighed and a sad light came into his eyes.
“You have no idea,” he said; “there is tyranny in America, but it is nothing to Russia. The nihilists are not
