The smile passed from the Unknown’s face. A strange look came into his eyes, as though his thoughts were far away. His chin relaxed its hold upon the violin and pressed upon his breast. His right arm slowly descended till the tip of the bow almost touched the floor; and there he stood, his eyes fixed upon the ground. A stillness overspread the company. No one moved a muscle save Charley. He, with an odd smile in his eyes, softly drew from his pocket a small pen-knife and held it in his left hand, with the nail of his right thumb in the notch of the blade.
Slowly, and as if unconsciously to himself, the Don’s right arm began to move. The violin rose, somehow, till it found its way under his chin.
Charley opened his knife.
There were signs in the Unknown’s countenance of a sharp but momentary struggle, when his right arm suddenly sprang from its pendent position, and the wrist, arched like the neck of an Arab courser, stood, for a second, poised above the bridge.
Charley passed the blade of his knife through the threads that bound the bandage about his finger, and the linen rag fell to the floor; and he rose and folded his arms across his breast.
The bow descended upon the G string. The stranger gave one of those quick up-strokes with the lowest inch of the horse-hair, followed by a down-stroke of the whole length of the bow.
CHAPTER XXX.
The note sounded was the lower A, produced, if I may be allowed to enrich my style with a borrowed erudition, by stopping the G string with the first finger. Whimsical as the idea may seem to a musician, I have always considered this the noblest tone within the register of the violin; and such an A I had never before heard. I have already mentioned the extraordinary acoustical properties of this room, the very air of which seemed to palpitate, the very walls to tremble beneath the powerful vibrations. The deep, long-drawn tone ceased, and again the wrist stood for a moment arched above the bridge. A breathless stillness reigned throughout the room, while the Don stood there, with pale face, his dark eyes “in a fine frenzy rolling,”—stood there, one might say, in a trance, forgetful of his audience, forgetful of self, unconscious of all else save the violin clasped between chin and breast. Down came the fingers of the left hand; with them the bow descended, this time upon all four strings; and four notes leaped forth, crisp, clear, and sparkling, brilliant as shooting-stars! Then chord after chord; and, in mad succession, arpeggios, staccatos, pizzicatos, chromatic scales, octaves, fierce, dizzy leaps from nut to bridge, cries of joy, mutterings of rage, moans of despair, all were there,—a very pandemonium of sound!
It was not a composition,—hardly an improvisation, even; for neither was key sustained nor time observed. It resembled, more than anything else I can compare it to, the mad carolling of a mocking-bird as he flaps and sails from the topmost branch of a young tulip poplar to another hard by, pouring forth in scornful profusion his exhaustless and unapproachable tide of song, little recking what comes first and what next,—whether the clear whistle of the partridge, the shrill piping of the woodpecker, or the gentle plaint of the turtle-dove.
And the mad dancing of the bow went on, amid a silence that was absolute. But it was a silence like that of a keg of gunpowder, where a spark suffices to release the imprisoned forces.