"Why so, sir? Pray tell me. I should have thought that you, before all other persons, would have rejoiced over them."
"Why so, indeed! but because the mystery of their very name is enough to break the head, and perhaps the heart. But now of this little one: he must, indeed, be covered as a bird in the nest, and shall be. And if I turn him not forth a strong-winged wonder, thou wilt stand up and have to answer for him,—is it not so?"
"Sir, I am certain he will play wonderfully upon what he calls those 'beautiful cold keys.'"
"Ah!" he answered dreamily, "and so, indeed, they are, whose very tones are but as different shadows of the same one-colored light, the ice-blue darkness, and the snowy azure blaze. He has right, if he thinks them cold, to find them alone beautiful." He spoke as if in sleep.
"Sir, I do not know what you mean, for I never heard even Milans-André."
"You are to hear him, then; it is positively needful."
Again the raillery pointed every word, as if arrows "dipped in balm."
"I mean that I scarcely know what those keys are like, for I never heard them really played, except by one young lady. I did not find the 'Tone-Wreath' cold, but I thought, when she played with Santonio, that her playing was cold,—cold compared with his; for he was playing, as you know, sir, the violin."
"You are right; yes. The violin is the violet!"
These words, vividly pronounced, and so mystical to the uninitiated, were as burning wisdom to my soul. I could have claimed them as my own, so exactly did they respond to my own unexpressed necessities. But indeed, and in truth, the most singular trait of the presence beside me was that nothing falling from his lips surprised me. I was prepared for all, though everything was new. He did not talk incessantly,—on the contrary, his remarks seemed sudden, as a breeze up-borne and dying into the noonday. There was that in them which cannot be conveyed, although conserved,—the tones, the manner, so changeful, yet all cast in grace unutterable; passing from vagrant, never wanton mirth, into pungent, but never supercilious gravity. Such recollection only proves that the beautiful essence flows not well into the form of words,—for I remember every word he spoke,—but rather dies in being uttered forth, itself as music.