The first violin: A novel

"Wonderful weather for April!" Yes, it certainty was wonderful. I fully agreed with the sentiment expressed at different periods of the day by different members of my family; bu...

The houses in Skernford--the houses of "the gentry," that is to say--lay almost all on one side an old-fashioned, sleepy-looking "green" toward which their entrances lay; but th...

I found myself, without having met any one of my family, in my own room, in the semi-darkness, seated on a chair by my bedside, unnerved, faint, miserable with a misery such as...

There was surely not much in Miss Hallam to encourage confidences; yet within half an hour of the time of entering her house I had told her all that oppressed my heart, and had...

I was almost afraid to mention my prospects to Adelaide. I feared she would resent my good fortune in going abroad, and that her anger at having spoiled those other prospects wo...

We had left Brussels and Belgium behind, had departed from the regions of _Chemins de fer_, and entered those of _Eisenbahnen_. We were at Cologne, where we had to change and wa...

I was expected. That was very evident. An excited-looking _Dienstmädchen_ opened the door, and on seeing me, greeted me as if I had been an old friend. I was presently rescued b...

Miss Hallam fulfilled her promise with regard to my singing lessons. She had a conversation with Fräulein Sartorius, to whom, unpopular as she was, I noticed people constantly a...

He came the following afternoon, at the time he had specified. Now, in the broad daylight, and apart from his official, professional manner, I found the Herr Direktor still diff...

As time went on, the image of Eugen Courvoisier, my unspoken of, unguessed at, friend, did not fade from my memory. It grew stronger. I thought of him every day--never went out...

The theater season closed with that evening on which "Lohengrin" was performed. I ran no risk of meeting Courvoisier face to face again in that alarming, sudden manner. But the...

It was the evening of the haupt-probe, a fine moonlight night in the middle of May--a month since I had come to Elberthal, and it seemed so much, so very much more.

"When a number of ladies meet together to discuss matters of importance, we call it 'Kaffeeklatsch,'" Courvoisier had said to me on that never-forgotten afternoon of my adventur...

From that evening Anna let me alone, as I thought, and I was glad of it, nor did I attempt any reconciliation, for the very good reason that I wished for none.

It was noon. The probe to "Tannhauser" was over, and we, the members of the kapelle, turned out, and stood in a knot around the orchestra entrance to the Elberthal Theater.

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower. We will grieve not--rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy...

Three years passed--an even way. In three years there happened little of importance--little, that is, of open importance--to either of us. I read that sentence again, and can no...

Thus Frau Schmidt to Eugen, as she stood with dubious smile and folded arms in our parlor, and harangued him, while he and I stood, violin-cases in our hands, in a great hurry,...

A week--ten days passed. I did not see the beautiful girl again--nor did I forget her. One night at the opera I found her. It was "Lohengrin"--but she has told all that story he...

The story of my life from day to day was dull enough, same enough for some time after I went to live at the Wehrhahn. I was studying hard, and my only variety was the letters I...

It was December, close upon Christmas. Winter at last in real earnest. A black frost. The earth bound in fetters of iron. The land gray; the sky steel; the wind a dagger. The tr...

Christmas morning. And how cheerfully I spent it! I tried first of all to forget that it was Christmas, and only succeeded in impressing the fact more forcibly and vividly upon...

Our merry little zauberfest of Christmas-eve was over. Christmas morning came. I remember that morning well--a gray, neutral kind of day, whose monotony outside emphasized the k...

I accepted this communication in my own sense, and did not go to meet Adelaide, nor visit her that evening, but wrote a card, saying I would come on the following morning. I had...

Eugen had said, "Very soon--it may be weeks, it may be days," and had begged me not to inquire further into the matter. Seeing his anguish, I had refrained; but when two or thre...

Several small events which took place at this time had all their indirect but strong bearing on the histories of the characters in this veracious narrative. The great concert of...

Königsallée, No. 3, could scarcely be called a happy establishment. I saw much of its inner life, and what I saw made me feel mortally sad--envy, hatred, and malice; no hour of...

"But you are yourself, you see, and I am I. What was it that Heinrich Mohr in 'The Children of the World' was always saying? _Ich bin ich, und setze mich selbst._ Ditto me, that...

Following Arkwright, I joined Adelaide and von Francius at the foot of the orchestra. She had sent word that she was tired. Looking at her, I thought indeed she must be very tir...

As days went on and grew into weeks, and weeks paired off until a month passed, and I still saw the same stricken look upon my sister's face, my heart grew full of foreboding.

"And behold, though the way was light and the sun did shine, yet my heart was ill at ease, for a sinister blot did now and again fleck the sun, and a muttered sound perturbed th...

"Didst thou, or didst thou not? Just tell me, friend! Not that _my_ conscience may be satisfied, _I_ never for a moment doubted thee-- But that I may have wherewithal in hand To...

Geschworen hab' ich 's, ja, ich hab's geschworen, Mich selbst zu bändigen. Hier ist dein Kranz, er sei auf ewig mir verloren; Nimm ihn zurück und lass mich sündigen. SCHILLER.

"Some say, 'A queen discrowned,' and some call it 'Woman's shame.' Others name it 'A false step,' or 'Social suicide,' just as it happens to strike their minds, or such understa...

I had a sharp, if not a long attack of illness, which left me weak, shaken, passive, so that I felt neither ability nor wish to resist those who took me into their hands. I reme...

I felt a deep rapture in being once more in that land where my love, if he did not live, slept. But I forbear to dwell on that rapture, much as it influenced me. It waxes tediou...

Eugen sent a telegram from Emmerich to Frau Mittendorf to reassure her as to my safety. At four in the afternoon we left that town, refreshed and rehatted, to reach Elberthal at...

It was beginning to be dusk when we alighted the next day at Lahnburg, a small way-side station, where the doctor's brand-new carriage met us, and after we had been bidden welco...

We had been bidden to dine at the schloss--Frau Mittendorf, Stella, and I. In due time the doctor's new carriage was called out, and seated in it we were driven to the great cas...

It was a wild night. Driving clouds kept hiding and revealing the stormy-looking moon. I was out-of-doors. I could not remain in the house; it had felt too small for me, but now...

were dead, since Eugen, by his wickedness, had destroyed every chance of happiness; she might as well be a widow. She sent me a package of letters--my letters--and asked me to k...

On the 23d of December--I will not say how few or how many years after those doings and that violent agitation which my friend Gräfin May has striven to make coherent in the las...