“Do you really think so?” cried Merivale. “Try it with the bow.”
He thrust the bow upon me. Without allowing myself time to hesitate, I touched the bow to the strings: the result was a voice from heaven, so clear, so broad, so sweet, of such magnetic quality, that it actually frightened me, made my heart palpitate, summoned a myriad dead emotions back to life. And yet I felt an irresistible temptation to continue, to push the experiment at least a trifle further.
“Tune it up,” said Merivale.
I complied. That was the final stroke. After I had drawn the bow for a second time across the cat-gut, there was no resisting. I lost possession of myself: ere I knew it, I was pouring my life out through the wonderful voice of the Stradivari.
I don’t remember what I played. Most probably it was a medley of reminiscences. I only remember that for the first few minutes I suffered the tortures of the damned—an army of devils were tugging at my heart-strings—and withal I had no power to restrain the motion of my arm and lay the violin aside. Then, I remember, the pain gradually turned to pleasure, to an immense sense of relief, as though all the woe pent up in the recesses of my soul had suddenly found an outlet and was gushing forth in a tremendous flood of sound. As I felt it ebbing away, like a poison let loose from my veins, somehow time and space were annihilated, facts were undone, truth changed to falsehood. Veronika and I were alone together in the pure realm of spirit while I told her in the million tempestuous variations of my music the whole story of my sorrow and my adoration. I listened to the music precisely as though it had been played by another person; I heard it grow soft and softer and melt into a scarcely audible whisper; I heard it soar away into mighty, passionate crescendi; I heard it modulate swiftly from prayerful minor to triumphant, defiant major; I heard it laugh like a child, plead like a lover, sob like Mary at the tomb of Christ; I heard it wax wrathful like a God in anger. And I—I was caught up and borne away and tossed from high to low by it like a leaf on the bosom of the ocean. And at last I heard the sharp retort of a breaking string; and I sank into a chair, exhausted.
I think I must have come very near to fainting. When I gathered together my senses and opened my eyes I was weak, nerveless, bewildered. Merivale stood in front of me, his gaze fixed upon my face.
“In God’s name,” I heard him say, “tell me what you are. Such music as you have played upsets all my established notions, undermines my philosophy, forces me back in spite of myself to a belief in witchcraft and magic. Are you a Merlin? Have you indeed the secret of enchantment? It is hardly credible that simple human genius wove that wonderful web of melody—which has at last come to an end, thank heaven! If I had had to listen a moment longer, I should have broken down. The strain was too intense. You have taken me with you through hell and heaven.”
Still weak and nerveless, I could not command my voice.
“You are faint,” he exclaimed. “The effort has tired you out. No wonder: here—drink this.” He held a glass to my lips. I drank its contents. Presently I felt a glow of warmth radiating through my limbs. Then I was able to stir and to speak.
“Through hell and heaven,” I repeated, echoing his words. “Yes, we have been through hell and heaven.”