Chapter 4

"Things came about, however, quite differently to what I had anticipated; for after I had once or twice met Krespel and had a talk with him about fiddle-making, he asked me to go and see him. I went, and he showed me his violin treasures: there ere some thirty of them hanging in a cabinet; and there was one, remarkable above the rest, with all the marks of the highest antiquity (a carved lion's head at the end of the tail-piece, etc.), which was hung higher than the others, with a wreath of flowers on it, and seemed to reign over the rest as queen.

"'This violin,' said Krespel, when I questioned him about it, 'is a very remarkable and unparalleled work, by some ancient master, most probably about the time of Tartini. I am quite convinced there is something most peculiar about its interior construction, and that, if I were to take it to pieces, I should discover a certain secret which 1 have long been in search of. But--you may laugh at me if you like--this lifeless thing, which I myself inspire with life and language, often speaks out of itself, to me in an extraordinary manner; and when I first played upon it, I felt as if I were merely the magnetiser--the mesmerist--who acts upon his _subject_ in such sort that she relates in words what she is seeing with her inward vision. No doubt you think me an ass to have any faith in nonsense of this sort; still, it is the fact that I have never been able to prevail upon myself to take that lifeless thing there to pieces. I am glad I never did, for since Antonia has been here, I now and then play to her on that fiddle; she is fond of hearing it--very fond.'

"He exhibited so much emotion as he said this, that I was emboldened to say 'Ah! dear Mr. Krespel, won't you be so kind as to let me hear you play on it?' But he made one of his bitter-sweet faces, and answered in his _cantabile sostenuto_:

"'_Nay_, my dear master student, that would ruin everything;' and I had to go and admire a number of curiosities, principally childish trash, till at length he dived into a chest and brought out a folded paper, which he put into my hand with much solemnity, saying: '_There!_ you are very fond of music: accept _this_ as a present from me, and always prize it beyond everything. It is a souvenir of _great_ value.' With which he took me by the shoulders and gently shoved me out of the door, with an embrace on the threshold--in short, he symbolically kicked me out of his house.

"When I opened the paper which he had given me, I found a small piece of the first string of a violin, about the eighth of an inch in length, and on the paper was written--

"'Portion of the first string which was on Stamitz's violin when he played his last Concerto.'

"The calmly insulting style in which I had been shown to the door the moment I had said a word about Antonia, seemed to indicate that I should probably never be allowed to see her; however, the second time I went to Krespel's I found Antonia in his room, helping him to put a fiddle together. Her exterior did not strike me much at first, but after a short time one could not resist the charm of her lovely blue eyes, rosy lips, and exquisitely expressive, tender face. She was very pale; but when anyone said anything interesting, a bright colour and a very sweet smile appeared in her face, but the colour quickly died down to a pale-rose tint. She and I talked quite unconstrainedly and pleasantly together, and I saw none of those Argus-glances which the Professor had spoken about. Krespel went on quite in his ordinary, beaten track, and seemed rather to approve of my being friendly with Antonia than otherwise. Thus it came about that I went pretty often there, and our little circle of three got so accustomed to each other's society that we much enjoyed ourselves in our quiet way. Krespel was always entertaining with his strange eccentricities; but it was really Antonia who drew me to the house, and made me put up with a great deal which, impatient as I was in those days, I should never have endured but for her. In Krespel's quirks and cranks there was often a good deal which was tedious, and not in the best of taste. What most annoyed me was that, whenever I led the conversation to music--particularly to vocal music--he would burst in, in that horrible singing voice of his, and smiling like a demon, with something wholly irrelevant and generally disgustingly unimportant at the same time. From Antonia's looks of annoyance on those occasions, it was clear that he did this to prevent me from asking her to sing. However, I wasn't going to give in: the more he objected, the more determined was I to carry my point. I felt that I must hear her, or die of my dreams of it.

"There came an evening when Krespel was in particularly good humour. He had taken an old Cremona violin to pieces, and found that the sound-post of it was about half a line more perpendicular than usual. Important circumstance!--of priceless practical value! I was fortunate enough to start him off on the true style of violin playing. The style of the great old masters--copied by them from that of the really grand singers--of which he spoke, led to the observation that now the direct converse held good, and that singers copied the scale, and skipping 'passages' of the instrumentalists. 'What,' said I, hastening to the piano and sitting down at it, 'can be more preposterous than those disgusting mannerisms, more like the noise of peas rattling on the floor of a barn than music?' I went on to sing a number of those modern cadenza-passages, which go yooping up and down the scale, more like a child's humming-top than anything else, and I struck a feeble chord or two by way of accompaniment. Krespel laughed immoderately, and cried 'Ha! ha! ha! I could fancy I was listening to some of our German Italians, or our Italian Germans, pumping out some aria of Pucitt or Portugallo, or some other such _maestro di capella_, or rather _schiavo d' un prime uomo_.'

"'Now,' thought I, 'is my chance at last.--I am sure Antonia,' I said, turning to her, 'knows nothing of all that quavering stuff,' and I commenced to roll out a glorious soulful aria of old Leonardo Leo's. Antonia's cheeks glowed; a heavenly radiance beamed from her beautiful eyes; she sprang to the piano; she opened her lips--but Krespel instantly made a rush at her; shoved her out of the room, and, seizing me by the shoulders, shrieked--'Little son, little son, little son.' He continued, in a soft and gentle singing voice, while he took me by the hand, bending his head with much courtesy, 'No doubt, my dear young Master Student, it would be a breach of all courtesy and politeness if I were to proceed to express, in plain and unmistakable words, and with all the energy at my command, my desire that the damnable, hellish devil might clutch hold of that throat of yours, here on the spot, with his red-hot talons; leaving that on one side for the moment, however, you will admit, my very dear young friend, that it's getting pretty late in the evening, and will soon be dark; and as there are no lamps lighted, even if I were not to pitch you down stairs, you might run a certain risk of damaging your precious members. Go away home, like a nice young gentleman, and don't forget your good friend Krespel, if you should never--_never_, you understand--find him at home again when you happen to call.' With which he took me in his arms, and slowly worked his way with me to the door in such fashion that I could not manage to set eyes on Antonia again for a moment.

"You will admit that, situated as I was, it was impossible for me to give him a good hiding, as, probably, I ought to have done by rights. The Professor laughed tremendously, and declared that I had seen the last of Krespel for good and all; and Antonia was too precious, I might say too sacred, in my sight, that I should go playing the languishing _amoroso_ under her window. I left her, broken-hearted; but, as is the case with matters of the kind, the bright tints of the picture in my fancy gradually faded, and toned down with the lapse of time; and Antonia, ay, even Antonia's singing, which I had never heard, came to shine upon my memory only like some beautiful, far-away vision, bathed in rosy radiance.

"Two years afterwards, when I was settled in B----, I had occasion to make a journey into the South of Germany. One evening I saw the familiar towers of H---- rising into sight against the dewy, roseate evening sky; and as I came nearer, a strange, indescribable feeling of painful, anxious uneasiness and alarm took possession of me, and lay on my heart like a weight of lead. I could scarcely breathe. I got out of the carriage into the open air. The oppression amounted to actual physical pain. Presently I thought I could hear the notes of a solemn hymn floating on the air; it grew more distinct, and I made out male voices singing a choral. 'What's this, what's this,' I cried, as it pierced through my heart like a dagger stab. 'Don't you see, sir?' said the postillion, walking beside me, 'it's a funeral going on in the churchyard.' We were, in fact, close to the cemetery, and I saw a circle of people in black assembled by a grave, which was bring filled in. The tears came to my eyes. I frit as if somehow all the happiness and joy of my life bring buried in that grave. I had been descending the hill pretty quickly, so that I could not now see into the cemetery. The choral ceased, and I saw, near the gate, black-dressed men coming away from the funeral. The Professor with his niece on his arm, both in deep mourning, passed close to me without noticing me. The niece had her handkerchief at her eyes' and was sobbing bitterly. I felt I could not go into the town; I sent my servant with the carriage to the usual hotel, and walked into the well-known country to try if I could shake off the strange condition I was in, which I ascribed to physical causes, being overheated and tired with my journey, etc. When I reached the alley which leads to the public gardens, I saw a most extraordinary sight--Krespel, led along by two men in deep mourning, whom he seemed to be trying to escape from by all sorts of extraordinary leaps and bounds. He was dressed, as usual, in his wonderful grey coat of his own making; but from his little three-cornered hat, which he had cocked over one ear in a martial manner, hung a very long, narrow streamer of black crape, which fluttered playfully in the breeze. Round his waist he had buckled a black sword-belt, but instead of a sword he had stuck into it a long fiddle bow.

"The blood ran cold in my veins. 'He has gone quite mad,' I said as I followed them slowly.

"They took him to his own door, where he embraced them, laughing loud. They left him, and then he noticed me. He stared at me in silence for a considerable time; then he said, in a mournful, hollow voice:

"'Glad to see you, Master Student, _you_ know all about it.' He seized me by the arm, dragged me into the house, and upstairs to the room where the violins hung. They were all covered with crape, but the masterpiece by the unknown maker was not in its place, a wreath of cypress bung in its stead.

"I knew then what had happened. 'Antonia, alas! Antonia,' I cried in uncontrollable anguish.

"Krespel was standing in front of me with his arms folded, like a man turned to stone.

"'When she died,' he said, very solemnly, 'the sound-post of that fiddle shivered to pieces with a grinding crash. The faithful thing could only live with her and in her; it is lying with her in her grave.' I sank into a chair overpowered; but Krespel began singing a merry ditty, in a hoarse voice; and it was a truly awful sight to see him dancing, as he sang it, upon one foot, while the crape on his hat kept flapping about the fiddles on the wall; and I could not help giving a scream of horror as this crape streamer, during one of his rapid gyrations, came wafting over my face, for I felt as if the touch of it must infallibly infect me, and drag me, too, down into the black, terrible abyss of madness. But when I gave the scream, Krespel stopped dancing, and said, in his singing voice:

"'What are you shrieking out like that for, little son? Did you see the death angel, think you? people always do before the funeral.' Then, walking into the middle of the floor, he drew the bow out of his belt, and, raising it with both hands above his head, he broke it into splinters. Then he laughed long and loud, and cried, 'The staff's broken over me now, you think, little son, don't you?[2] nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind!'

"'I'm free now--I'm free! I'm free! And fiddles I'll make no more, boys! And fiddles I'll make no more! Hurray! hurray! hip-hip hurray! Oh! fiddles I'll make no more.'"

"This he sang to a terribly merry tune, dancing about on one foot again as he did so. Full of horror I was making for the door; but he held me back, saying, quite quietly and soberly this time:

"'Don't go away, Master Student. Don't think that those outbreaks of my pain, which is so terrible that I can scarcely bear it longer, mean that I am mad. No, no, I am as sane as you are, and as calmly in my senses. The only thing is, a little while ago I made myself a nightshirt, and thought when I had it on I should be like Destiny, or God.' He went on talking the wildest incoherence for a time, till he sank down, completely exhausted. The old housekeeper came at my summons, and I was thankful when I found myself outside in the open air.

"I never doubted for an instant that Krespel had gone completely mad; but the Professor maintained the contrary. 'There are people,' he said, 'in whose cases Nature, or some destiny or other, has deprived them of the cover--the exterior envelope--under which we others carry on our madnesses unseen. They are like certain insects who have transparent integuments, which (as we see the play of their muscular movements) give the effect of a malformation, although everything is perfectly normal. What never passes beyond the sphere of thought in us becomes action in Krespel. The bitter scorn and rage which the soul, imprisoned as it is in earthly conditions of being and action, often vividly feels, Krespel carries out, or expresses, into external life, by extraordinarily frantic gesticulations and hare jumps. But those are his lightning conductors. What comes out of the earth he delivers back to the earth again; the heavenly he retains, and consequently apprehends it quite clearly and distinctly with his inner consciousness, notwithstanding all the crackiness which we sparking out of him. No doubt Antonia's unexpected loss touches him very keenly, but I should bet that he'll be going on in his usual jog trot to-morrow as if nothing had happened.'

"And it turned out very much as the Professor had expected: Krespel appeared next morning very much as if nothing had happened. Only he announced that he had given up fiddle-making, and would never play on one again. And it afterwards appeared that he kept his word.

"All that I had heard from the Professor strengthened my conviction that the relation in which Antonia had stood to Krespel--so very intimate, and so carefully kept unexplained--as also the fact that she was dead--very probably involved him in a very serious responsibility, which he might find it by no means easy to clear himself from. I made up my mind that I would not leave H---- until I had given him the full benefit of my ideas on this subject. My notion was to thoroughly alarm him, to appeal to his conscience, and, if I could, constrain him to a full confession of his crime. The more I considered the matter the clearer it seemed that he must be a terrible villain; and all the more eloquent and impressive grew the allocution which I mentally got ready to deliver to him, and which gradually took the form of a regular masterpiece of rhetoric.

"Thus prepared for my attack, T betook myself to him in a condition of much virtuous indignation one morning.

"I found him making children's toys at his turning lathe, with a tranquil smile on his face.

"'How,' said I, 'is it possible that your conscience can allow you to be at peace for an instant, when the thought of the horrible crime you have been guilty of must perpetually sting you like a serpent's tooth?'

"He laid down his tools, and stared at me in astonishment.

"'What do you mean, my good sir?' he said. 'Sit down on that chair there.'

"But I went on, with much warmth, and distinctly accused him of having caused Antonia's death, threatening him with the vengeance of Heaven. Nay more, being full of juridical zeal--as I had just been inducted into a judicial appointment--I went on to assure him that I should consider it my duty to leave no stone unturned to bring the affair thoroughly to light, so as to deliver him into the hands of earthly justice. I was a little put out, I admit, when, on the conclusion of my rather pompous harangue, Krespel, without a word in reply, merely looked at me as if waiting for what I had to say next: and I tried to find something further to add: but everything that occurred to me seemed so silly and feeble that I held my peace. He seemed rather to enjoy this breakdown in my eloquence, and a bitter smile passed over his face, but then he became very grave, and said in a solemn tone:

"'My good young sir! Very likely you think me a fool--or a madman. I forgive you. We are both in the same madhouse, and you object to my thinking myself God the Father, because you think you are God the Son. How do you suppose you can enter into another person's life, utterly unknown to you in all its complicated turnings and windings, and pick up and follow all its deeply hidden threads? She is gone, and the riddle is solved!'

"He stopped, rose, and walked two or three times up and down the room. I ventured to ask for some explanation. He looked at me fixedly, took me by the hand, and led me to the window, opening both the outside jalousies. He leaned upon the sill with both his arms, and, so looking out into the garden, he told me the story of his life.

"When he had ended, I left him deeply affected, and bitterly ashamed.

"To make a long tale short, matters as concerned Antonia stood as follows:

"Some twenty years previously, his fancy of making a collection of the finest violins of the great old makers had taken him to Italy. At that time he had not begun to make violins himself, neither, consequently, to take them to pieces. At Venice he heard the renowned prima donna, Angela, at that time shining in the leading _rôles_ at the Teatro di San Benedetto. She was as supereminent in beauty as she was in art: and well became, and deserved, her name of Angela. He sought her acquaintance, and, in spite of all his rugged uncouthness, his most remarkable violin playing, with its combination of great originality, force and tenderness, speedily won her artist's heart. A close intimacy led, in a few weeks, to a marriage--which not made public--because Angela would neither leave the stage, give up her well-known name, nor tack on to it strangely-sounding 'Krespel.' He described, with the bitterest irony, the quite peculiar ingenuity with which Signora Angela commenced, as soon as she was his wife, to torment and torture him. All the selfishness, caprice, and obstinacy of all the prima donnas on earth rolled into one, were, as Krespel considered, incorporated in Angela's little body. Whenever he tried to assert his true position in the smallest degree, she would launch a swarm of _abbates_, _maestros_, and _academicos_ about his ears, who, not knowing his real relations with her, would snub him, and set him down as a wretched unendurable ass of an amateur _inamorato_, incapable of adapting himself to the Signora's charming and interesting humours. After one of those stormy scenes, Krespel had flown off to Angela's country house, and phantasizing on his Cremona, was forgetting the sorrows of the day. This had not lasted long, however, when the Signora, who had followed him, came into the room. She happened to be in a tender mood: she embraced Krespel with sweet, languishing glances, she laid her little head upon his shoulder. But Krespel, lost in the world of his harmonies, went on fiddling, so that the walls reechoed; and it so chanced that he touched the Signora, a trifle ungently, with his bow-arm. She blazed up like a fury, screamed out, '_Bestia tedesca_,' snatched the violin out of his hand, and dashed it to pieces on a marble table. Krespel stood before her for a moment, a statue of amazement, and then, as if awaking from a dream, he grasped the Signora as with the fists of a giant, shied her out of the window of her own _palazzo_, and set off--without concerning himself further about the matter--to Venice, and thence to Germany. It was some little time before he quite realized what he had done. Though he knew the window was only some five feet from the ground, and the necessity of throwing the Signora out of it under the circumstances was quite indisputable, still he felt very anxious as to the results, inasmuch as she had given him to understand that he was 'about to be a father.' He was almost afraid to make any inquiries, and was not a little surprised, some eight months afterwards, to receive an affectionate letter from his beloved wife, in which she did not say a syllable about the little circumstance which had occurred at the country _palazzo_, but announced that she was the happy mother of a charming little daughter, and prayed the '_marito amato e padre felicissimo_' to come as quickly as he could to Venice. However, Krespel didn't go, but made inquiries through a trusted friend as to what had happened. He was told that the Signora had dropped down on to the grass as lightly as a bird, and the only results of her fall were mental ones. The Signora had been like a new creature after Krespel's heroic achievement. All her wilfulness and charming caprices had disappeared completely; and the _maestro_ who wrote the music for the next Carnival considered himself the luckiest man under the sun; inasmuch as the Signora sang all his arias without one of the thousand alterations which, in ordinary circumstances, she would have insisted on his making in them. Krespel's friend added that it was most desirable to give no publicity to what had occurred, because, otherwise, _prima donnas_ would be getting pitched out of window every day.

"Krespel was in great excitement. He ordered horses. He got in to the post-chaise.

"'Stop a moment, though,' he said. 'Isn't it a positive certainty that, as soon as I make my appearance, the evil spirit will take possession of Angela again? I've thrown her out of window once already. What should I do a second time? I don't see what I could do.'

"He got out of the carriage, wrote an affectionate letter to his wife, and--remained in Germany. They carried on a warm correspondence. Assurances of affection, fond imaginings, regrets for the absence of the beloved, etc., etc., flew backwards and forwards between H---- and Venice. Angela came to Germany, as we know, and shone as prima donna on the boards at F----. Though she was no longer young, she carried everything before her by the irresistible charm of her singing. Her voice had lost nothing at that time. Meanwhile Antonia had grown up; and her mother could scarce find words in which to describe, to Krespel, how, in Antonia, a Cantatrice of the first rank was blossoming out. Krespel's friends in F----, too, kept on telling him of this; begging him to go there and hear these two remarkable singers. Of course they had no idea of the relationship in which Krespel stood to them. He would fain have gone and seen his daughter, who lived in the depths of his heart, and whom he often saw in dreams. But the thought of what his wife was restrained him: and he stayed at home, amongst his dismembered fiddles.