"'Well, that,' said the Professor, 'is an affair which would make me have a very shady opinion of Krespel, if I didn't know what a thoroughly good fellow he is; so that I feel convinced there is some mystery about it which we don't at present fathom. When he first came here some years ago, he lived like a hermit, with an old housekeeper, in a gloomy house in ----Street. His eccentricities soon attracted people's attention, and, when he saw this, he soon sought and made acquaintances. Just as was the case in my house, people got so accustomed to him that they couldn't get on without him. In spite of his rough exterior even the children got fond of him, though they were never troublesome to him, but always looked upon him with a certain amount of awe which prevented over-familiarity. You have seen how he attracts children by all sorts of ingenious tricks. Everybody looked upon him as a regular old bachelor and woman-hater, and he gave no sign to the contrary; but after he had been here some time, he went off on some excursion or other, no one knew where, and it was some months before he came back. The second evening after his return, his windows were lighted up in an unusual way--and that was enough to attract the neighbours' attention. Presently, a most extraordinarily beautiful female voice was heard singing to a pianoforte accompaniment. Soon the tones of a violin were heard joining in, responding to the voice in brilliant, fiery emulation. It was easy to distinguish that it was Krespel who was playing. I joined the little crowd assembled outside the house myself, to listen to the wonderful concert, and I can assure you that the greatest prima-donnas I have ever heard were poor every-day performers compared to the lady we heard that night. I never heard any one sing with such marvellously touching expression, and such absolute finish of execution; never had had any idea of such long-sustained notes, such nightingale roulades, such crescendoes and diminuendoes, such swellings to an organ-like forte, such dyings down to the most imperceptible whisper. There was not a soul in all the crowd able to resist the magic spell of this wonderful singing; and when she stopped, you heard nothing but sighs breaking the silence. It was probably about midnight, when, all at once we heard Krespel talking loudly and excitedly; another male voice, to judge by the tone of it, bitterly reproaching him about something, and a woman intervening as best she could tearfully, in broken phrases. Krespel screamed louder and louder, till at last he broke into that horrible singing tone which you know. A loud shriek from the lady interrupted him: then all was as still as death; and suddenly steps came rapidly down the stairs, and a young man came out, sobbing, and, jumping into a carriage which was standing near, drove rapidly away.
"'The next day Krespel appeared quite in his ordinary condition, as if nothing had happened, and no one had the courage to allude to the events of the previous night; but the housekeeper said Krespel had brought home a most beautiful lady, quite young; that he called her Antonia, and that it was she who sung so splendidly; and that a young gentleman had also come, who seemed to be deeply attached to Antonia, and, as she supposed, was engaged to her; but that he had had to go away, because Krespel had insisted on it. What Antonia's precise position with respect to Krespel is, remains a mystery; at all events he treats her in the most tyrannical style. He watches her as a cat does a mouse, or as Dr. Bartolo, in Il Barbiere, does his niece. She scarcely dares to look out of the window. On the rare occasions when he can be prevailed upon to take her into society, he watches her with Argus-eyes, and won't suffer a note of music to be heard, far less that she shall sing; neither will he now allow her to sing in his own house; so that, since that celebrated night, Antonia's singing has become, for the people of the town, a sort of romantic legend, as of some splendid miracle, and even those who never heard her often say, when some celebrated prima-donna comes to sing at a concert, 'Good gracious! what a wretched caterwauling all this is, nobody can sing but Antonia!'
"You know how anything of this sort always fascinates me, and you can imagine how essential it became to me that I should make Antonia's acquaintance. I had heard those sayings of the public about Antonia's singing often, but I had had no idea that this glorious creature was there, on the spot, held in thraldom by this crack-brained Krespel, as by some tyrant enchanter. Naturally, that night, in my dreams I heard Antonia singing in the most magnificent style; and as she was imploring me, in the most moving manner, to set her free, in a gloriously lovely adagio--absurdly enough, it seemed as if I had composed it myself--I at once made up my mind that, by some means or other, I would make my way into Krespel's house, and, like another Astolfo, set this Queen of Song free from her shameful bonds.
"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.