Chapter I: WALKED along aimlessly, recounting all the happenings of the last few (1)

weeks. I was astonished at my own blank insensibility. “Why, Veronika, the Veronika you loved, is dead, murdered,” I said to myself, “and you, you who loved her, have been in prison and on trial for the crime. They have outraged you. They have sworn falsely against you. And the very core of your life has been torn out. Yet you—what has come over you? Are you heartless, have you no capacity for grief or indignation? Oris it that you are still half stunned? And that presently you will come to and begin to feel?” I strode on and on. It was broad day now. By and by I looked around.

I was in Second avenue, near its southern extremity. I was standing in front of a large red brick house. A white placard nailed to the door caught my eye. “Room to let,” it said in big black letters.

“Room to let?” I repeated. “Why, I am in need of a room.” And I entered the house and engaged the room. The landlady asked my name. I told her it was Lexow, that having been the maiden-name of my mother. Neuman had acquired too unpleasant a notoriety through the published accounts of the trial. As Lexow I have been known ever since.

I employed an express agent to go to the Tombs and bring back my luggage.

Then I sat at my window and watched the people pass in the street. I sat there stockstill all day. I was aware of a vague feeling of wretchedness, of a vague craving for a relief which I could not name. As dusk gathered, a lump grew bigger and bigger in my throat. “I am beginning to be unhappy,” I thought. “It is high time.” My insensibility had frightened as well as puzzled me. Instinctively, I knew it could not last forever, knew it for the calm that precedes the storm. I was anxious that the storm should break while I was still strong enough to cope with its fury. Waiting weakened me. Besides, I was ashamed of myself, hated myself as one shallow and disloyal. That I could be indifferent to Veronika’s death! I, who had called myself her lover!

But now, as the lump grew in my throat, now, I thought, perhaps the hour has come. I sat still in my chair, fanning this forlorn spark of hope.

In the end, by imperceptible degrees, sleep stole upon me. It was natural. I had been up for more than six-and-thirty hours.

When I awoke a singular thing happened. Memory played me a singular trick.

I awoke, conscious of a great luminous joy in my heart. It was full morning. “Ah,” I thought, “how bright the sunshine is! how sweet the air! To-day I will go to Veronika to-day, after my lessons—and spend the lest of the afternoon and the evening at her side!” My heart leaped at this prospect of happiness in store: and I commenced to plan the afternoon and evening in detail. At last I jumped up, eager to begin the delicious day.

The trick that memory played me was a simple one, after all. The recent past had simply for the moment been obliterated, and I transported back for a moment into the old time. As I stood now in the middle of the floor, my eye was struck by the strangeness of my surroundings.

“Why, how is this?” I questioned. “Where am I?”

For a trice I was bewildered, but only for a trice. The truth reasserted itself all at once—rose up and faced me with its grim, deathly visage, as if cleared by a stroke of lightning. All at once I remembered; and what is more, all at once the stupor that had hung like a cloud between me and the facts, rolled away. I looked at my world. It was dust and ashes, a waste space, peopled by ghosts. My heart recoiled, sickened, horrified; then began to throb with the pain that had been ripening in its womb ever since the morning when Tikulski pointed to her, stretched murdered upon the bed.

Well, at last the storm had broken; at last I realized. At last I could no longer reproach myself for a want of sensibility. At last I had my desire. I yielded myself to the enjoyment of it for the remainder of the day.

For weeks afterward I lay at the point of death. The slow convalescence that ensued afforded me plenty of time to examine my position from every point of view, and to get accustomed to understanding that the light had gone out of my sky. Of course I hated the fate that condemned me to regain my health. The thought that I should have to drag out years and years of blank, aimless, joyless life, appalled me. The future was a night through which I should be compelled to toil with no hope of morning. Strangely enough, the idea of suicide never once suggested itself.

When I was able to go out, I repaired to Epstein’s office. Several little matters remained to be settled with him. As I was about to leave, he said, “Neuman, do you propose to take any steps toward finding the murderer?”

“Toward finding the murderer? Why, no; I had not thought of doing so.”

“But of course you will. You won’t allow the affair to rest in statu quo?”

“Why not?”

“Why, considering your relations to Miss Pathzuol, I should think your motive would be plain. Don’t you want to see her murderer punished, her death atoned for?”

“Her death atoned for! Her death can never be atoned for. And the punishment of her murderer—would that restore her to me? Would that undo the fact that she is dead? Else, why should I bestir myself about it?”

“Common human nature ought to be enough; the natural wish to square accounts with him.”

“Do you fancy, Epstein, that such an account as this can be squared? Suppose we had him here now at our mercy, what could we do by way of squaring accounts? Put him to death? Would that square the account? To say so would be to compare his miserable life to hers.—But besides, he is not at our mercy. We have no clew to him.”

“Yes, on the contrary, we have.”

“Indeed? What is it?”

“Why, the most apparent one. You are sure the Marshalls lied?”

“Oh yes; I am sure of that.”

“Well, what earthly inducement could they have had for lying—for perjuring themselves, mind you, and running the risk of being caught and sent to prison—what earthly inducement, unless thereby they hoped to cover up their own guilt by throwing suspicion upon another man?”

“Yes; that is so. I had not thought of that.”

“Well, now, if you and I are sure that the Marshalls participated in that crime, there is a solid starting-point. Now, will you not join me and help to fasten the guilt upon them?”

“What good would it do? I say again, would that give her back to me?”

“But, my dear fellow, even if you have no desire to see the murderer punished, you must at least wish to retaliate upon the wretches who jeopardized your life by their false swearing, who sought to thrust upon your innocent shoulders the brunt of their own offending.”

“No; I confess, I have no such wish.”

“But—but you amaze me. Have you not the ordinary instincts of a man?

“It is the business of the police, any how. Let them move in the matter. You ought to understand that I am sick and tired, that all I wish for is to be left alone. No, no; if the Marshalls should ever be brought to justice it will not be by my efforts. The police can manage it for themselves.”

“But there is just the point.” Epstein hesitated; at length went on, “There is just the point I wanted to bring to your notice. It will be hard for you to hear, but you ought to understand—it is only right that I should tell you—that—that—why, hang it, the police will remain idle because they suppose they have already finished the business, already put their finger on the—the man.”

“Well, why should they remain idle on that account? Why don’t they arrest him and try him, as they did me, before a jury?”

“You don’t comprehend, Neuman. The fact of the matter is—you must pardon me for saying so—the fact is, they still suspect you.”

“Suspect me? What, after the very jury has acquitted me? I thought the verdict of the jury was conclusive.”

“So it is, in one sense. They can’t put you in jeopardy again. But this is the way they stand. They say, ‘We haven’t sufficient legal evidence to warrant a conviction, but we feel morally certain, all the same, and so there’s no use prying further.’ That is my reason for broaching the subject and for urging you so strongly. You ought to clear your character, vindicate your innocence, by proving to the police that they are wrong, that the guilt rests with their own witnesses, the Marshalls.

“I thank you, Epstein, for telling me this. I am glad to realize just what my status is. But let me cherish no misconception. Is this theory of the police—is it held by others?”

“To be frank, I am afraid it is. The newspapers took it up and—and I’m afraid it s the opinion of the public generally.”

“Then the verdict did not signify?”

“Well, at least not so far as public opinion is concerned.”

“So that I am to rest under this stigma all my life?”

“Why, no—not if you choose to exonerate yourself, as I have indicated.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. I don’t care to exonerate myself. What difference would it make? Would it make the fact that she is lost to me forever one shade less true? Only, it is well that I should have a clear understanding of my position, and I thank you for giving it to me.”

“You don’t mean to say that you are going to drop the case there?” Epstein demanded. “I assure you, I never should have opened my mouth about it, had I foreseen this.”

“Don’t reproach yourself. You have simply done your duty. It was my right to hear this from you.—Yes, of course I shall drop the case. Good-by.”

“You will think better of it; you will reconsider it; you will come back to-morrow in a wiser frame of mind. Good-by.”

As I reentered my lodging-house the landlady met me; thrust an envelope into my hand; and vanished.

I was surprised to see that the envelope was addressed to “E. Neuman, Esquire.” It will be remembered that I had introduced myself as Mr. Lexow. I tore it open. It inclosed a memorandum of my arrears of rent and a notice to quit, the latter couched thus: “Mr. Neuman’s real name having been learned during his sickness, please move out as soon as you have paid up.”

I caught sight of myself in the glass. “So,” I said, “you are the person whom people suspect as a murderer! and it is thus that you are to be regarded all the rest of your life as one touched with the plague.”

I counted my ready money and paid the landlady her due.

“I am very sorry,” she began, “but the reputation of my house—but the other lodgers—but—”

“You needn’t apologize,” I interposed, and left the house.

It occurred to me that it would be necessary to find work whereby to earn my livelihood. I had quite forgotten that I was poor. What should I do?

The notion of giving music lessons again I could not entertain. Music had become hateful to me. I could not touch my violin. I could not even unlock the case and look at the instrument. It was too closely associated with the cause of my sorrow. The mere memory of a strain of music, drifting through my mind, was enough to cut my heart like a knife. Music was out of the question.

I had had a little money in the Savings Bank. With this sum I had intended to furnish the rooms which she and I were to have occupied! Now it was all spent; three-quarters swallowed up by the expenses of my trial, the residue by the expenses of my illness and the landlady’s score for rent. I opened my purse. I had less than a dollar left. So it behooved me to lose no time. I must find a means of support at once.

But music apart, what remained?—My wits were sluggish. Revolving the problem over and over as I walked along, they could arrive at no solution.

We were in December. The day was bitter cold. I had not proceeded a great distance before the cold began to tell upon me. “I must step in somewhere and warm myself,” I said. I was still feeble. I could not endure the stress of the weather as I might have done formerly. I made for the first shop I saw.

It was a wine-shop, kept by a German, as the name above the door denoted. I took a table near the stove and asked for a glass of wine. As my senses thawed, I became aware that a quarrel was going on in the room—angry voices penetrated my hearing.

The proprietor, a fat man in his shirt-sleeves, stood behind the bar. His face was very red! In his native tongue loudly and volubly he was berating one of his assistants—a waiter with a scared face.

“Go, go at once. You are a rascal, a good-for-naught,” he was saying; “here is your money. Clear out, before I hurt you.”

The culprit was nervously untying his apron strings. “Yes, sir, at once, at once,” he stammered. In the end he put on his hat and accomplished a frightened exit. His confreres watched his decapitation with repressed sympathy.

After he had gone, the proprietor’s wrath began perceptibly to mitigate. He settled down in his chair. The tint of his skin gradually cooled. He lighted a cigar. He picked up a newspaper.

I had taken in these various proceedings mechanically, without bestowing upon them any special attention. But now an idea, prompted by them, began to fructify. By and by I approached the counter and ventured a timid, “I beg your pardon.”

The proprietor glanced up.

“I beg your pardon,” I continued in German, “but you have discharged a waiter!”

“Well?” he responded.

“Well, you will probably need somebody to take his place?”

“Well? What of it?”

“I—I—that is, if you think I would do, I should like the employment.”

The proprietor looked thoughtful. He scratched his chin, puffed vigorously at his cigar, and asked my name. He shook his head when I confessed that I had had no experience of the business; but seemed impressed by my remark that on that account I would be willing to serve for smaller wages. He mentioned a stipend. It was ridiculously slender; but what cared I? It would keep body and soul together. I desired nothing more.

“What references can you give?” he inquired.

I mentioned Epstein.

“All right,” he said. “You can go to work at once. To-morrow I will look up your reference. If it be satisfactory, I will keep you.”

The Oberkellner provided me with an apron and a short alpaca jacket; and in this garb Ernest Neuman, musician, merged his identity, as he supposed for good and all, into that of Ernest Lexow, waiter.

VII.

TWO years elapsed. Their history is easily told. I lived and moved and had my being in a profound apathy to all that passed around me. The material conditions of my existence caused me no distress. I dwelt in a dingy room in a dirty house; ate poor food, wore poor clothing, worked long hours; was treated as a menial and had to put up with a hundred indignities every day; but I was wholly indifferent, had other things to think of. My thoughts and my feelings were concentrated upon my one great grief. My heart had no room left in it for pettier troubles. I do not believe that there was a waking moment in those two years’ when I was unconscious of my love and my loss. Veronika abode with me morning, noon, and night. My memory of her and my unutterable sorrow for her engrossed me to the exclusion of all else.

My violin I did not unlock from year’s end to year’s end. I could not get over my hatred for the bare idea of music. Music recalled the past too vividly. I had not the fortitude to endure it. The sound of a hand-organ in the street was enough to cause me a twinge like that of a nerve touched by steel.

As the winter leaped into spring, and days came which were the duplicates of those I had spent with her, of course my pain grew more acute. The murmur of out-door life and the warmth and perfume of the spring air, penetrated to the very quick of memory and made it quiver. But at about this time I began to taste an unexpected pleasure. It was an odd one. Of old, during our betrothal, I had been tormented almost nightly by bad dreams. As surely as I laid my head upon its pillow, so surely would I be wafted off into an ugly nightmare—she and I were separated—we had quarreled—she had ceased to love me. But now that my worst dream had been excelled by the reality, I began to have dreams of quite another sort. As soon as sleep closed upon me, the truth was annihilated, Veronika came back. All night long we were supremely happy; we played and sang and talked together, just as we had been used to do. These dreams were astonishingly life-like. Indeed, in the morning after one, I would wonder which was the very fact, the dream or the waking. My nightly dream got to be a goal to look forward to during the day. But as the summer deepened, I dreamed less and less frequently, and at length ceased altogether.

Autumn returned, and winter; and my life did not vary. Time was slow about healing my wounds, if time meant to heal them at all. But time did not mean to heal them at all, as ere long became apparent.

One afternoon in November, a month or so before the two years would have terminated, a young man entered the shop and ensconced himself at a table in the corner. Having delivered his order and lighted a cigarette, he pulled out a yellow covered French book from the pocket of his coat, and speedily became immersed in its perusal. I don’t know what it was in the appearance of this young man that attracted my attention. Almost from the moment of his advent my eyes kept going back to him. His own eyes being fastened upon his book, I could stare at him without giving offense. And stare at him I did to my heart’s content.

He was a tall young fellow and wore his hair a trifle longer than the fashion is. He was dressed rather carelessly; he knocked his cigarette ashes about so that they soiled his clothes. He had a dark skin, and, in singular contrast to it, a pair of large blue eyes. His forehead, nose, and chin were strongly modeled and expressed force of character without pretending to conventional beauty. He was not a handsome, but a distinguished looking man. The absence of beard and mustache lent him somewhat of the aspect of a Catholic priest. His big blue eyes were full of good-nature and intelligence. He had a quick, energetic way of moving which announced plenty of dash within. He had entered the shop like a gust of wind, had shot across the floor and taken his seat at the table as if impelled by the force of gunpowder, and now he turned the pages of his book with the air of a man whose life depended upon what he was doing. No sooner had he consumed one of his cigarettes than he applied a match to its successor.

I stared at him mercilessly and wondered what manner of individual he was.

“He is not a business-man,” I said, “nor a lawyer nor a doctor: that is evident from his whole bearing; and besides, what would he be doing in a wine-shop at this hour of the afternoon? I don’t think he is a musician, either—he hasn’t the musician’s eyes or mouth. Possibly he is a school-teacher, or it may be—yes, I should say most certainly, he is an artist of some sort, a painter or sculptor, or perhaps a writer.”

My speculations had proceeded thus far when in the quick, energetic way above alluded to the young man looked at his watch, slammed to his book, shoved back his chair, and commenced hammering upon the table with the bottom of his empty beer-mug.

“Yes, sir,” I said, responding to his summons.

“Check,” he demanded laconically.

I handed him his check. He thrust his fingers into his waistcoat-pocket for the money. They roamed about, apparently unrewarded.

A puzzled expression came upon his face. The fingers paused in their occupation; presently emerged and dived into another pocket and then into another. The puzzled expression deepened: at last changed its character, became an expression of intense annoyance. He knitted his brows and bit his lip. Glancing up, he said, “This is really very awkward. I—I find I haven’t a sou about me. It’s—bother it all, I suppose you’ll take me for a beat. But—here, I can leave my watch.”

“Oh, that’s entirely unnecessary,” I hastened to put in. “Don’t let it distress you. Tomorrow, or any other day you happen to be passing, will do as well.”

He looked at the same time surprised and relieved. “That’s not a conservative way of doing business,” he said. “How do you know I may not take advantage of you?”

“Oh, I’m quite at rest about that. You need not be disturbed.”

“Well, such faith in human nature is stimulating,” he answered. “I should hate to imperil it. So you may be sure I’ll turn up to-morrow. Meanwhile I’m awfully obliged.”

Thereat he went away.

I paid his reckoning from my own purse, and immediately fell again to wondering about him.

By and by it occurred to me, “Why, that is the first human being who has taken you out of yourself for the last two years!” And thereupon I transferred my wonder to the interest he had managed to arouse in my own preoccupied mind. Then gradually my thoughts flowed back into their customary channels.

But early the next day I caught myself asking, “Will he return?” and devoutly hoping that he would. Not on account of the money; I had no anxiety about the money. But somehow, self-centered as I was, I had felt drawn toward this blue-eyed young man, and anticipated seeing him again with an approach to genuine pleasure.

Surely enough, in the course of the afternoon the door opened and he entered.

“Ah,” he said, “you see, I am faithful to my trust. Here is the lucre: count it and be satisfied that the sum is just. Really,” he added, dropping the mock theatrical manner he had assumed, “really, it was frightfully embarrassing yesterday. But I’m a victim of absentmindedness, and in changing my clothes I had omitted to transfer my pocket-book from the one suit to the other. I can’t tell you how much indebted I am for your considerateness. I suppose you are overrun with dead-beats who play that dodge regularly—eh?”

I gave him the answer his question called for, served him with the drinkables he ordered, and stationed, myself at a respectful distance.

He lighted his inevitable cigarette and produced his book. He read and smoked for a few moments in silence. Suddenly he flung the book angrily upon the table, pushed back his glass, and uttered an audible “Confound it!”

I hastened forward to learn the subject of his discomposure and to supply what remedy I might.

“I beg your pardon,” I ventured, “is there any thing wrong with the wine?”

“Eh—what?” he queried. “With the wine? Any thing wrong? Oh—I perceive. Oh, no—the wine s all right. It’s this beastly pedantic author. He is describing the Jewish ritual, and now just observe his idiocy. He goes on at a great rate about the beauty of a certain prayer—gets the reader’s curiosity all screwed up—and then—fancy his airs!—and then quotes the stuff in the original Hebrew! It’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even condescend to affix a translation in a foot-note. Look.”

He opened the book and pointed, with a finger dyed brown by tobacco-smoke, to the troublesome passage.

Now I, having been brought up as an orthodox Jew, had a smattering of Hebrew, and at a glance I saw that I could easily translate the few sentences in question. So, impulsively and without stopping to reflect that my conduct might seem officious, I said, “If you would like, I think perhaps I may be able to aid you.”

“What!” he exclaimed, fixing a pair of wide open eyes upon my face.

“Yes, I think I can translate it.”

“The deuce!” he cried. “I didn’t suspect you were a scholar. How in the name of goodness did you learn Hebrew?”

“A scholar I am not, surely enough: but I am a Jew, and like the rest of my faith I studied Hebrew as a boy.”

“Ah, I understand. Well, fire away.”

I took the book and read the Hebrew aloud. It was a prayer, which, when a child, I had known by heart. Afterward I explained its sense while my friend jotted it down with a pencil upon the margin.

“Thanks,” he was good enough to say. “I don’t know what I should have done without your help.—And so you are a Jew? You don’t look it. You look like a full-blown Teuton. But I congratulate you all the same.”

“Congratulate me for looking like a Teuton?” The shop being empty, there was no harm in my joining in conversation with a client. Besides, I did not stop to think whether there was harm in it or not. I yielded to the attraction which this young man exerted over me.

“No—for belonging to the ancient and honorable race of Jews,” he answered. “Your ancestors were civilized and dwelt in cities and wrote poems, thousands of years ago: whereas mine at that epoch inhabited caves and dressed in bearskins and occasionally dined on a roasted neighbor. I should be proud of my lineage, were I a Jew.”

“But it is the fashion for the Gentiles to despise us.”

“Oh, bosh! It is the fashion for a certain ignorant, stupid set of Philistines to do so—but those who pretend to the least enlightenment, on the contrary, regard the Jews as a most enviable people. They envy your history, they envy the success that waits upon your enterprises. For my part, I believe the whole future of America depends upon the Jews.”

“Indeed, how is that?”

“Why, look here. What is the American people to-day? There is no American people—or rather there are twenty American peoples—the Irish, the German, the Jewish, the English, and the Negro elements—all existing independently at the same time, and each as truly American as any of the others. Good! But in the future, after emigration has ceased, these elements will begin to amalgamate. A single people of homogeneous blood will be the consequence. Do you follow?”

“I think I follow. But the Jews?”

“But the Jews—precisely, the Jews. It is the Jewish element that is to leaven the whole lump—color the whole mixture. The English element alone is, so to speak, one portion of pure water; the German element, one portion of eau sucrée; now add the Jewish—it is a dose of rich strong wine. It will give fire and flavor to the decoction. The future Americans, thanks to the Jew in them, will have passions, enthusiasms. They will paint great pictures, compose great music, write great poems, be capable of great heroism. Have I said enough?”

The result was that we chatted together for half an hour with the freedom of old acquaintances. He quite made me forget that I was his servant for the time, and led me to speak out my mind with the unreserve of equal to equal. I enjoyed a peculiar sense of exhilaration that lasted even after he had gone away. In spite of myself I could not help relishing this contact with a superior man. Again I fell to wondering about his occupation. I was more and more persuaded that he must be an artist of some sort, or a writer.

The next day he came again, and the next, and the next, and regularly every day at about the same hour for a fortnight. As surely as he seated himself at the corner table, so surely would he beckon to me and begin to talk. In these dialogues he afforded me no end of entertainment, touching in a racy way upon a score of topics. He had resided abroad for some years—seemed equally at home in Paris, Rome, and Munich—and his anecdotes of foreign life were like glimpses into dream-land for me. He had the faculty of making me forget myself, and for that reason, if for no other, I should have valued his friendliness. Our interviews occurred as bright spots in the sad gray monotone of my daily life.

VIII.

BUT one day, the fortnight having passed, he failed to put in an appearance. I was heartily disappointed. I spent the rest of the afternoon fathoms down in the blues—like an opium eater deprived of his daily portion. It was Saturday, and as usual at nightfall the shop filled up and the staff of waiters was kept busy. Toward ten o’clock, long before which hour I had ceased altogether to expect him, the door opened and my friend came in. He squeezed up between a couple of Germans at one of the tables, and sat there smoking and reading an evening paper. I had no opportunity to do more than acknowledge the smile of greeting with which he favored me; and it chanced that the table at which he was established fell under the jurisdiction of another waiter. He consumed cigarette after cigarette and read his paper through to the very advertisements on the last page; and still, while the other guests came and went, he staid on. At the hour for shutting up he had not yet shown any disposition to depart. His attendant carried off his empty glass and hovered uneasily around his chair; but he failed to take the hint. At length the proprietor began to turn out the lights. At this he got up, buttoned his overcoat, waved a farewell at me, and passed beyond the door.

I followed soon after. Turning up Second avenue, I felt a hand laid gently upon my shoulder. “I have been waiting for you,” said my friend. “Which way do you walk?” Without pausing for a reply, “You won’t mind my walking with you?” and he linked his arm in mine.

“I was afraid I had seen the last of you for the day,” I answered. “This is a pleasant surprise, I assure you.”

After a few yards in silence he resumed, “I say—oh, by the way, you have never told me your name?”

“My name is Lexow.”

“What? Lexow?—Well, I say, Lexow, without being indiscreet, I should like to ask how under the sun you ever came to be employed as you are around in Herr Schwartz’s saloon.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Oh come now; yes, you do understand, too,” he rejoined. “Don’t take offense and be dignified—We’re both young men, and there’s no use in trying to mystify each other. You needn’t tell me that you have always been a waiter. You’re too intelligent, too much of a gentleman in every way. I’m not blind; and it doesn’t require especially long spectacles to perceive that you are something different from what you would havens believe. I’ve seen a good deal of the world and I’m not prone to romancing. So I don’t fancy that you’re a king in exile or a Russian nobleman or any thing of that sort. But at the same time I’m sure you’re capable of better things than waiting, and I want to know what the trouble is, so that I can help to set you back on the right track.”

“One confidence deserves another. I have told you my name, tell me yours.”

“My name is Merivale, Daniel.—But don’t change the subject.”

“Well, Mr. Merivale, I will say then, that if any other man had spoken to me as you have just done, I should certainly have been offended. I say this not to reproach you, but to show by the fact that I’m not offended how much I think of you. So you mustn’t take offense either when I add that I should prefer to speak of other things.”

“After that I suppose I ought to consider myself snubbed. But, I sha’n’., notwithstanding. I shall simply take the whole confession for granted. Now, Mr. Mysterious, I will venture to make three allegations of fact about you. Promise to set me right if I am wrong. I assure you I am actuated by disinterested motives. All you will have to do will be to say yes or no. Promise.”

“I can’t pledge myself blindfold. But if the ‘allegations of fact’ are within certain limits, I will satisfy you—although I repeat I would prefer a different subject.”

“Capital! Well, then, for a beginner: You are or were or have at some time hoped to be, an artist of some sort—eh?”

“How did you find that out?”—The query escaped involuntarily. For a moment a dread lest he might have discovered my true identity, darkened my mind: but it was transitory.

“You indorse allegation number one! No matter how I found it out. I don’t really know myself—unless it was by that instinct which kindred spirits have for recognizing one another. But now for allegation number two. Its form shall be negative. You are not a painter, a sculptor, an actor, or a poet.”

“No, neither of them.”

“Brava! I could have sworn to it. Therefore you are a musician. And I will have the hardihood to guess that your instrument is the violin.”

“I confess, Mr. Merivale, that you surprise me. You have divined the truth, but for the life of me, I don’t see how.”

“Why, by the simplest of possible means. If one is only observing and has a knack of putting two and two together, most riddles can easily be undone. After our first interview I said, That fellow is above his station; after our second, That fellow is an artist; after our third, I’ll bet my head he is a musician. I have told you it was partly instinct, that made me set you down for an artist. It was partly the tone of your conversation—your tendency to warm up over matters pertaining to the arts, and to cool down when our talk verged the other way. Then a—a certain ignorance that you betrayed about pictures and books and statuary helped on the process of elimination. I concluded that you were a musician—which conclusion was strengthened by the fact of your being a Jew. Music is the art in which the Jews excel. And one day a chance attitude that you assumed, a twist of the neck, a hitch of the shoulder, cried out Violin! as clearly as if by word of mouth—though no doubt the wish fostered the thought, for I have always had a predilection for violinists. Now I will go further and declare that a chagrin of one kind or another is accountable for your present mode of life. A few years ago I should have said: A woman in the case—disappointment in love—and so forth. Now, having become more worldly, I say: Fear of failure, lack of self-confidence. Answer.”

“Since you are such an adept at clairvoyance, I need not answer. But don’t let this thing become one-sided. You too are an artist, as you have hinted and as I had fancied. And your art is?”

“Guess. I’ll wager you’ll never guess.”

“No; I confess I am at a loss. You seem equally familiar with all the arts. One moment I think you are a painter; the next, a sculptor. I’m sure you’re not a musician. And on the whole it seems most probable that you are in some way connected with literature. I don’t know why.”

“Good! You have hit the nail on the head! In spite of my slangy speech and my worldly wisdom, learn that I aspire to become a poet! the poet of the practical, of the every day, of the passions of modern life. As yet, however, I am, as the French put it, inédit. The magazines repudiate me. I am too downright, too careless of euphemism, to suit their dainty pages. But this is aside from the point. The point is that I want to hear you play.”

“Impossible. For me music is a thing of the past. I haven’t touched a violin these two years. I shall never touch one again.

“Bah, bah! Excuse my frankness, but don’t be a child. If you haven’t touched your violin for two years, you have allowed two precious years to leak away. All the more reason for stopping the leak at once. Come in.”

“We had arrived in front of an English-basement house in Seventeenth street.

“Come in,” he repeated. “This is where I live.”

“It is too late,” I said.

“Nonsense,” he retorted. “It is never too late. Advance!”

I followed him into the house.

The room to which he conducted me was precisely the sort of room one would have expected. It was chock-full of odds and ends, piled about in hopeless confusion. The walls were hung with a reddish paper, and freckled with framed and unframed pictures—etchings, engravings, water-colors, charcoals, some suspended correctly by wires from the cornice, others pinned up loosely by their corners. The ceiling was tinted to harmonize with the walls. The floor was carpetless, of hard wood, waxed to a high degree of slipperiness, and relieved by a sporadic rug or two. Bits of porcelain and metal ware, specimens of old Italian carving, Chinese sculptures in ivory, rich tapestries, bronze and plaster reproductions of antique statuary, and books of all sizes and descriptions and in all stages of decay, were scattered hither and thither without a pretense to order. On the whole the effect of the room was pleasant, though it resembled somewhat closely that of a curiosity-shop gone mad. My host informed me that it was Liberty Hall and bade me make myself at home. Producing a flagon of Benedictine, he said laconically, “Drink.”

We drank together in silence. Turning his emptied glass upside down, “Now,” he cried, “now for the music. Now you are going to play.”

“Oh, I thought you had forgotten about that,” I answered.

“‘Tis not among my talents to forget,” he declaimed, theatrically. “You must prepare to limber up your fingers.”

“Really, Mr. Merivale,” I insisted, “you don’t know what you are asking. I should no more think of touching a violin to-night than, than—no need of a comparison. The long and short of the matter is that I have the best of reasons for not wanting to play, and that the most you can urge to the contrary won’t alter my resolution. I hate to seem boorish or disobliging, but really I can’t help it. Besides, my instrument is a mile away and unstrung, and it is so late that the other occupants of this house would be annoyed. And as the subject is extremely painful to me, I wish you would let it drop.”

“Oh, if you are going to treat the matter au grand sérieux,” said Merivale, “I suppose I must give in. But you have no idea of how disappointed I shall be. As for an instrument, I’ve a fiddle of my own in the next room—one that I scrape on now and then myself. As for the other occupants of this house, I pay double rent on the condition that my quarters are to be my castle, and that I can create as much rumpus in them, day and night, as I desire. If I were disposed to do so, I could make this a broad proposition of ethics, and maintain that as an artist you have no right to decline to exercise your skill. Your talent is given you in trust—a trust which you violate when you bury the talent in the ground. But I won’t go so far as that. I’ll simply ask you as a favor to play for me, and, if after that you are still obstinate, I’ll hold my peace.”

“Well, I am forced to be obstinate. Now let’s change the subject.”

“I bow my head. Only, perhaps you will make a single concession. As I have said, I am the possessor of a fiddle. It is one I picked up in Rome. I bought it of a seedy Italian nobleman; and he claimed it for a rare one—a Stradivari, in fact. I’m no judge of such things, and most likely was taken in. Will you look at it and give me your opinion?”

“Oh, yes, I have no objection to doing that,”

I said, glad to prove myself not altogether churlish.

“Here it is,” he continued, putting the violin into my hands.

It was a beautiful instrument from an optical standpoint. What remained of the varnish was ruddy and crystalline, and as smooth as amber.

The curves were exquisite. It was also either genuinely old or a marvelous imitation. Its interior was dark and dirty—an excellent condition. I could descry no label there—another favorable sign. Was it indeed a Stradivari? Formerly it had been an ambition of mine to play upon a Stradivari; an ambition which I had never had a chance to gratify, because among the dozen so-called Stradivaris that I had come upon here and there, I had found not one but betrayed its fraudulent origin from the instant the bow was drawn across the strings. Something of the old feeling revived in me as I held this instrument in my hands, and before I had thought, my finger mechanically picked the A string. The clear, bell-like tone that responded, caused me to start. I had never heard such a tone as this produced before by the mere picking of a string.

“I believe you have a treasure here,” I exclaimed. “I’m not connoisseur enough to say whether it is a Stradivari; but whoever its maker was, it’s a superb instrument.”

“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.”

“It was a frightful experience,” he added, “more than I bargained for when I asked you to play.”

“You must forgive me; I was carried away; I had no intention of harrowing you, but I had not played for so long a time that my emotions got the best of me.”

“Oh, don’t talk like that,” he protested. “It was a frightful experience, but it was one I would not have missed. I had never dreamed that music could work such an effect upon me; but now I can understand the ardor with which musicians love their art; I can understand the claims they make in its behalf. It is indeed the most powerful influence that can be brought to bear upon the feelings. For my part I never was so deeply moved before—not even by Dante. But tell me, how did you acquire your wonderful skill? What must your life have been in order that you should play like that?”

“Of ‘wonderful skill’ I have little enough. Tonight perhaps I played with a certain enthusiasm because I was excited. But you attribute too much to me. A musician would have descried a score of faults. My technique has deserted me; but even when I used to practice regularly, I occupied a very low grade in my profession.”

“I care not how you used to play, nor how you were rated, nor how faulty your technique may be. You play now with a force that is more than human. I am not given either to flattery or to exaggeration, and I am not easily stirred up. But you have stirred me up, clear down to the marrow of my bones. Perhaps these two years of abstinence have but ripened the genius that was already in you—allowed it time to ferment. Tell me, what depths of joy and sorrow have you sounded to gather the secrets you have just revealed with your violin? What has your life been?”

“My life has been a very simple one, and for the most part very prosaic.”

“You might as well call the sun cold, the sea motionless, as pretend that your life has been prosaic. Friend, the only element that gives life and magnetism to art is profound, human truth That which touches us in a picture, a poem, or a symphony, is its likeness to the truth, its nature, especially its human nature. That is what makes Wilhelm Meister a powerful book, because each page is written, so to speak, in human blood. That is what makes Titian’s Assumption a great picture, because the agony in the Madonna’s face is true human agony. And that is what gave your music of a moment since the power to pierce the very innermost of my heart-because it was true music the expression of true human passion. Tell me, what manner of life have you lived, to learn so much of the deep things of human experience?”

I looked into his clear, earnest eyes. They shone with a sympathy that fell as balm upon my wounds. An impulse that I could not battle with unsealed my lips. I told him my whole story from first to last.

Some of the time, as I was speaking, he sat motionless with his brow buried in his hands. Some of the time he paced up and down the floor. He smoked constantly. Twice or thrice he extended his palm to bid me pause, indicating by nodding his head when he wished me to go on. Not once did he verbally interrupt, nor for a long while after I had done did he speak.

By and by he grasped my hand and wrenched it hard and said, “Will—will you understand by my silence what I feel? It would be sacrilege for me to talk about this thing. I—I—oh, what a fool I am to open my mouth!”

But presently he cried, “The injustice, the humiliation, that you have been put to! It is shameful. To think that they dared to try you, as though the mere sight of your face was not sufficient to prove you incapable of the first thought of crime! But I can understand your motive for not wishing to hunt the Marshalls down. Only of this I am sure, that if there is any such thing as equity in this world, some day their guilt will be made manifest and they will receive the chastisement which they deserve. Oh, how you have suffered! I tell you, it sobers a man, it reminds him of the seriousness of things, the spectacle of such a colossal sorrow as yours has been.”

Again silence. Eventually he crossed over to the window and sent the curtains rattling across their pole. It was getting light outside. I pulled myself together. Rising, “Well,” I said, “good-by. My visit to you has been like a sojourn in another world. Now, I must return to my own dreary sphere. Forgive me if I have wearied you with all this talk about myself. I seemed to speak without meaning to—involuntarily. Once started, I could not have stopped myself, had I tried.”

“Don’t speak like that,” he rejoined hastily and with a look of reproach. “Don’t make me feel that you repent your confidence. It was only right, only natural, that you should unbosom yourself to me. It was the consecration of our friendship. Friendship is never complete until it has been tested in the fire of sorrow. Mere companionship in pleasure is not friendship. No matter how intimately we might have seen each other, we should never have been friends until you had told me this.—Moreover, don’t get up. You must not think of going away as yet.”

“As yet? Why, I have outstaid the night itself. I must make haste or I shall be behindhand at the shop.”

“You must not think of returning to the shop to-day. You must go to bed and have some sleep. When you awake again I shall have a proposition to lay before you. For the present follow me—”

“But Mr. Merivale—”

“But I anticipate your objections. But they are worthless. But the shop may, and I devoutly hope it will, be struck by lightning. Furthermore, if you are anxious about it, I’ll send word around to the effect that you’re unwell and not able to report for duty. That’s the truth. But any how I have a particular reason for wanting to keep possession of you for a while longer. Now, be tractable—as an indulgence, do what I ask.”

There was no resisting the appeal in Merivale’s big blue eyes. I followed him as he desired. He led me into the adjoining room, where there were two narrow brass bedsteads side by side.