ETCHINGS: THE OLD VIOLINIST
(Emma Churchman Hewitt: For Short Stories.)
The chorus has just ended and the conductor has acknowledged the plaudits of an enthusiastic audience.
Waiting in the side wings is a little bent old man, his silvery hair lying across his violin as he murmurs to it loving words.
At last! at last he will be heard in solo!
What matter all the weary years without recognition? He will be heard! What matter that it is only a charity concert and he has proffered his services? He will be heard! and the appreciation of the audience will testify to his genius.
But hark!
There has been some mistake!
That should have been his number, not the tenor solo!
Never mind, it is all right! What matters a few moments more or less, when one is about to reach one’s soul’s desire?
So he sits and listens, his heart beating loudly with suppressed but consuming excitement.
At last! At last!
But what is that?
The audience is leaving!
Why he hasn’t played yet!
He looks around in a dazed way. Moritz will explain it, he tells himself wearily, Moritz always understands everything, and he lays his head down on the table beside him.
* * * * *
A young man hastens from among the orchestra players, his face pale and his teeth set, as he thinks of the disappointed old man behind the scenes. He thinks his father is weeping over his disappointment. “Father,” he cries, a sob in his voice, “it is all right, it shall be all right! There were so many encores, you see there was not time for all. The manager didn’t know and he left out the wrong thing. But you are to play to-morrow night, father, so it will be all right, you see,” and he smiles as he raises the dear old face, as he would have done that of a child. Upon the furrowed cheeks there are no tears, but on the face, chiseled by the stern hand of death ... a look of pained surprise ... bewildered disappointment ... the old man’s heart is broken.