The Blind Musician

by Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

VI.

From that evening the boy came to Joachim in the stable every night. It never occurred to him to ask Joachim to play for him during the daytime; he seemed to fancy that the stir and bustle of the day precluded all possibility of these sweet melodies. But as soon as the shades of evening began to fall, Petrùsya was seized with a feverish impatience. The evening tea and supper served but as signs of the approach of the longed-for moment; and the mother, although she felt an instinctive aversion for those musical séances, still could not forbid her darling to seek the company of the piper and spend two hours with him in the stable before bedtime. Those hours became for the boy the happiest of his life; and the mother saw with painful jealousy that the impressions of the previous evening held entire possession of the child; that during the day he no longer responded to her caresses with his former ardor; that while sitting in her lap with his arms about her, his thoughts would revert to Joachim’s song of the previous evening.

It suddenly occurred to the mother that while she was in the pension of Pani Radètzka, several years ago, she had among other “delightful accomplishments” pursued the study of music. This reminiscence was not in itself a source of delight, because it was connected with the memory of her teacher,—one Klapps; a lean, prosy, and irritable old German Fräulein. This bilious maiden, who in order to impart to the fingers of her pupils the required flexibility, had trained them most skilfully, succeeded at the same time in destroying every vestige of poetical and musical feeling. The very presence of Pani Klapps, not to mention her pedantic method, was well calculated to abash so sensitive an emotion. Therefore after leaving school, and even since her marriage, Anna Michàilovna had felt no inclination to renew her musical studies. But now, as she listened to the piper, she was conscious that in addition to the emotion of jealousy a sense of appreciation and feeling for the living melody had sprung up in her soul, and the image of the German Fräulein was almost forgotten. The result of this was that Pani Popèlska requested her husband to send to town for an upright piano.

“If you wish it, my dove,” replied the exemplary husband. “I thought you did not care much about music.”

That same day a letter was sent to town; but several weeks must elapse before the instrument could arrive in the country.

Meanwhile the same harmonious strains proceeded from the stable evening after evening; and the boy, who had ceased to ask his mother’s permission, hurried eagerly thither at the proper time. With the customary odor of the stable was mingled the fragrance of the hay and the pungent smell of the leather harnesses; and whenever the piper paused for a moment one could hear the faint rustling of the wisps of hay which the horses, quietly munching, pulled through the bars, and also the whispering of the green beeches in the garden. In the midst of all this Pètrik[8] sat listening like one enchanted. He never interrupted the musician; but once when the latter had been resting, and several minutes had passed in absolute silence, the charmèd influence that possessed the boy gave way to a passionate yearning. He reached to grasp the pipe, took it in his trembling hands, and carried it to his lips. Gasping for breath, his first notes were faint and tremulous, but by slow degrees he gained a certain mastery over the simple instrument. Joachim placed the boy’s fingers on the holes, and although the tiny hand could hardly grasp them, he had very soon mastered the notes of the scale. Every note possessed to him an individuality of its own; he knew in which opening he should find each of these tones, whence to bring it forth; and at times when Joachim was quietly and slowly playing some simple melody, the blind boy’s fingers would imitate his movements. As tone followed tone, he seemed to know exactly from which hole each one came.

VII.

At last, after three weeks had gone by, the piano was brought from town. Pétya[9] stood in the yard and listened attentively, in order to discover how the workmen hurrying to and fro would carry “the music” into the rooms. Surely it must be very heavy, for when they lifted it down from the cart there was a creaking noise, and also much groaning and puffing among the men. And now he could hear their heavy, measured tread; and at every step there was a jarring, a rumbling, and a ringing above their heads. When this strange music was placed on the drawing-room floor, it again sent forth a dull rumbling sound like the threatening tones of an angry voice.

All this alarmed the boy and by no means attracted him toward this new guest, at once inanimate and wrathful. He went into the garden, and thus he missed hearing them set up the instrument; neither did he know when the tuner, who had arrived from town, tuned it with his tuning-hammer, tried the key-board, and tightened the wires. It was not until all was in readiness that the mother ordered Pétya to be brought into the room.

With the best Vienna instrument as an auxiliary, Anna Michàilovna felt confident of victory over the simple rustic pipe. Now her Pétya is to forget the stable and the piper, and she will once more become the source of all his joys. She glanced merrily at her boy as he timidly entered the room, accompanied by Uncle Maxim and Joachim; the latter, having asked leave to listen to the foreign music, with down-cast eyes and overhanging forelock now stood bashfully in the doorway. Just as Uncle Maxim and Pétya seated themselves on the lounge Anna suddenly struck the keys of the piano. She played the piece that she had learned to perfection at the pension of Pani Radètzka, under the instruction of Fräulein Klapps. It was not a particularly brilliant piece, but quite complicated, and one that required a certain amount of dextrous fingering; at the public examination Anna Michàilovna gained much praise, both for herself and her teacher, by the playing of this piece. No one positively knew, but many surmised, that the silent Pan Popèlski was first charmed with Pani Yatzènko during the identical quarter of an hour required for the performance of her difficult music. Now the young woman played it with the view of winning a second victory: she wished to bind still more closely to herself her son’s young heart, enticed away from her by the pipe of the Hohòl.