“Silence; I am yet in your debt. Be my guest to-day, with your friends. To-morrow you must depart, for I leave Milan with my troops, and your adventure here might still have serious consequences for you. Your passports to Germany are already made out.”
II.
Paris, 13th April, 1814.
I received from M. —— the following note:—
“Your story of the musician in the dungeon, and your longing to hear him again, form a pretty romance; but, like other romances, it savors strongly of imagination. I told it to Lafont to-day; he laughed, and said, ‘I pledge myself to cure this feverish enthusiasm: I must give him a violin concert.’ I have taken him at his word. This evening his promise is to be fulfilled; and, to put you down completely, Baillot, Kreuzer and Rode are also invited! Can you desire more? I shall expect you this evening.”
I cannot describe what I felt at this invitation. For the last four years I had heard all the violin players in the different cities where I had been, yet nothing in the smallest degree approached what I remembered. Now I was to hear the four most famous masters the world knew. I trembled for my ideal.
With a beating heart, I found myself in the brilliantly lighted saloon. Ah, the splendor of the scene, the elegant dresses of the ladies, were displeasing to me; I thought of my dungeon in Milan, and the melody that seemed wafted from another sphere.
The concert began. Lafont played first. The most perfect polish, a tone of silvery clearness—in andante, as in allegro, grace itself—were his; but it was as a finely wrought miniature beside the nameless charm of that glorious picture before my mind’s vision.
Next I heard Kreuzer. Brilliant as a string of diamonds were his passages, full and clear were his tones, and of surpassing boldness and strength; but his was the brilliancy of pure metal, or of jewels—not the living beam that penetrates the soul.
Baillot now came forward. The full, energetic harmony he drew from the instrument, roused memory in my breast. A noble fire glowed in his work; he ruled like a monarch over the realm of sound. But my prisoner ruled like a god!