He did not hesitate long. He stood up on the window-sill and jumped down to them, and he went up to the blind man and asked him to lend him his violin. Ingrid at once took the violin from the blind man and gave it to him.
'Play the waltz from "Freischütz,"' she said.
Then the man began to play, and Ingrid smiled, but she looked so unearthly that Mrs. Blomgren almost thought that she would dissolve into a sunbeam, and fly away from them. But as soon as Mrs. Blomgren heard the man play she knew him again.
'Is that how it is?' she said to herself. 'Is it he? That was why she wanted to see two old people perform.'
Gunnar Hede, who had been walking up and down his room in such a rage that he felt inclined to kill someone, had suddenly heard a blind man playing outside his window, and that had taken him back to an incident in his former life.
He could not at first understand where his own violin was, but then he remembered that Alin had taken it away with him, and now the only thing left for him to do was to try and borrow the blind man's violin to play himself quiet again; he was so excited. And as soon as he had got the violin in his hand he began to play. It never occurred to him that he could not play. He had no idea that for several years he had only been able to play some poor little tunes.
He thought all the time he was in Upsala, outside the house with the Virginia-creepers, and he expected the acrobats would begin to dance as they had done last time. He endeavoured to play with more life to make them do so, but his fingers were stiff and awkward; the bow would not properly obey them. He exerted himself so much that the perspiration stood on his forehead.
At last, however, he got hold of the right tune—the same they had danced to the last time. He played it so enticingly, so temptingly, that it ought to have melted their hearts. But the old acrobats did not begin to dance. It was a long time since they had met the student at Upsala; they did not remember how enthusiastic they were then. They had no idea what he expected them to do.
Gunnar Hede looked at Ingrid for an explanation why they did not dance. When he looked at her there was such an unearthly radiance in her eyes that in his astonishment he gave up playing. He stood a moment looking round the small crowd. They all looked at him with such strange, uneasy glances. It was impossible to play with people staring at him so. He simply went away from them. There were some apple-pears in bloom at the other end of the garden, so he went there.