He had straightened his old back, and while his arm carried the bow with the precise elegance of former days, he bowed his little head, bald as a radish, listeningly over the violin.
It had been a year and a day since he had played the instrument of his youth. But this evening something so wonderful had come over him; he got his violin out and in some way mended the strings, and now he was playing his youth, his dreams, his puny triumphs, and his great overthrow.
He played a few chords and at last Spohr’s “Adagio” which had gained for him the master’s approval and he played without stumbling a single time—clearly and correctly as the master would have had it.
The starving note copyist and the drunken musician, he was no longer. With head thrown back, eyes wide open, he stood there in the light of the sooty oil-lamp and played the garret room into a vaulted salon with hundreds of lamps and rows of breathlessly attentive ladies and gentlemen. His wretchedness fell from him and the artist stood forth once more; and the half-extinguished spark in his soul broke out into a noble flame as if music had forgiven him—music whom he had loved and betrayed; and at last came the great master, laid his hand upon his head and said: “He will go high in it.”
With the instrument under his arm and with down-cast bow, Anton Schirrmeister bowed himself out into the room. Then he hastily laid the violin away in its case, closed the cover upon it, and threw himself into a chair with his hands over his eyes. But when a little later he looked up, Elsie was sitting just in front of him, on a chest by the door. She too, was holding her hands over her eyes.
And the old wreck looked at the young wreck and shook his head. Something was heard shuffling up the stairs and out into the garret as if a number of people were trying to walk softly. Puppelena peered in and then she stepped aside to make room for the others.
It was the whole “gang.” She had collected them here and there. They were following her in the hope that she had something for them; so they were in a merry humor.
Loppen tried to steal away, but one of them took hold of her. It was Svend.
They had not seen each other for several weeks; and when they parted they were at outs. But in the mood Elsie was in, she was touched to see him—even as ugly and disreputable as he was.
Svend noticed this and sat down beside her on the chest, to lament and whine and promise to do better and everything good if she would only stay with him again.