It is but fair to allow myself an allusion to my violin, as it was becoming a very essential feature in my history. With eight hours' practice a day I had made some solid progress; but it did not convict me of itself yet, as I was not allowed to play, only to acquaint myself with the anatomy of special compositions, as exercises in theory. Iskar played so easily, and gave such an air of playing to practice, that it never occurred to me I was getting on, though it was so, as I found in time. At this era I hated the violin, just as pianoforte students hate the pianoforte during the period of apprenticeship to mechanism. I hated the sound that saluted me morning, noon, and night; I shrank from it ever unaccustomed, for the penetralia of my brain could never be rendered less susceptible by piercing and searching its recesses. I believe my musical perception was as sensitive as ever, all through this epidemic dislike, but I felt myself personally very musically indisposed. I could completely dissociate my ideal impression of that I loved from my absolute experience of what I served. I was patient, because waiting; content, because faithful; and I pleased myself albeit with reflecting that my violin—my own property, my very own—had a very different soul from that thing I handled and tortured every day, from which the soul had long since fled. For all the creators of musical forms have not power to place in them the soul that lives for ages, and a little wear and tear separates the soul from the body. As for my Amati, I knew its race so pure that I feared for it no premature decay. In its dark box I hoped it was at least not unhappy, but I dearly longed for a sight of it, and had I dared, I would have crept into the closet, but that whenever it was unlocked I was locked up. The days flew, though they seemed to me so long, as ever in summer; and I felt how ravishing must the summer be without the town. I wearied after it; and although the features of German scenery are quite without a certain bloom I have only found in England, they have some mystic beauty of their own unspeakably more touching; and as I lived then, all life was a fairy-tale book, with half the leaves uncut. I was ever dreaming, but healthfully,—the dreams forgotten as soon as dreamed; so it chanced that I can tell you nothing of all I learned or felt, except what was tangibly and wakingly presented to myself. I remember, however, more than distinctly all that happened the last evening I passed in that secluded house, to my sojourn in which I owe all the benisons bestowed upon my after artist life. We had supped at our usual hour, but when I arose and advanced to salute Aronach as usual, and sighed to see how bright the sun was still upon everything without and within, he whispered in my ear,—an attention he had never before paid me,—"Stay up by me until the other two are off; for I wish to speak to thee and to give thee some advice."
Iskar saw him whisper, and looked very black because he could not hear; but Aronach waved him out, and bade me shut the door upon him and Starwood. I trembled then, for I was not used to be along with him tête-à-tête; we usually had a third party present in the company of Marpurg or Albrechtsberger.[17] He went into the closet first, and rummaged a few minutes, and then returning, appeared laden with a bottle of wine and my long hid fiddle-case. Oh, how I flew to relieve him of it! But he bade me again sit down, while he went back into the closet and rummaged again; this time for a couple of glasses and two or three curious jars, rich china, and of a beautiful form. He uncorked the bottle and poured me, as I expected, a glass of wine.
It was not the wine that agitated me, but the rarity of the attention, so much so that I choked instead of wishing him his health, as I ought to have done. But he was quite unmoved at my excitation, and leaned back to pour glass after glass down his own throat. I was so unused to wine that the sip I took exhilarated me, though it was the slightest wine one can imbibe for such purpose. And then he uncovered the odd gay jars, and helped me profusely to the exquisite preserves they contained. They were so luscious and delicate that they reminded me of Eden fruits; and almost before my wonder had shaped itself into form, certainly before it could have betrayed itself in my countenance, Aronach began to speak,—
"They pique thee, no doubt, and not only thy palate, for thou wast ever curious. They come from him of whom thou hast never spoken since thy holiday."
"Everything comes from him, I think, sir."
"No, only the good, not the evil nor the negative; and it is on this point I would advise thee, for thou art as inconsiderate as a fledgling turned out of the nest, and art ware of nothing."
"Pray advise me, sir," I said, "and I shall be glad that I am inconsiderate, to be advised by you."
I looked at him, and was surprised that a deep seriousness overshadowed the constant gravity,—which was as if one entered from the twilight a still more sombre wood.
"I intend to advise thee because thou art ignorant, though pure; untaught, yet not weak. I would not advise thy compeers,—one is too young, the other too old."
"Iskar too old!" I exclaimed.