"Prodigiously," said he.
"Père Paragot had played the violin for sixty years, but he could not make it sing like that."
"You would not compare Père Paragot with my master?" I exclaimed by way of rebuke.
Blanquette acquiesced humbly.
"When one hears Monsieur, one has the devil in one's body."
"Listen to this," said the delighted Paragot jumping on to his feet and tucking the fiddle beneath his chin.
And there in the pure dawn with nothing but God's sky and green fields around us, he played Gounod's "Ave Maria," putting into his execution all his imaginative fervour, and accentuating the tremolo passages in a vibrating ecstasy which to Blanquette's uncultured soul was the very passion of music. I have since learned that the greatest violinists do not overemphasise the tremolo.
"Ah Dieu! it is beautiful," she murmured.
"Isn't it?" cried Paragot. "And it touches your heart, my little Blanquette, eh? We are all artists together."
"I, Monsieur?"