He was devoted to his art, though he had
never attained to any remarkable proficiency in it; and at any
hour of the day he might be heard scraping, and tuning, and
practising, for he belonged to the orchestra of one of the
theatres. It was quite a new sensation for Madelon to hear so
much music in private life, and she thought it all beautiful--
tuning and scraping and all.
"But that is all rubbish," the German would cry, after
spending an hour in going through some trashy modern Italian
music. "Now, my child, you shall hear something worth
listening to;" and with a sigh of relief he would turn to some
old piece by Mozart or Bach, some minuet of Haydn's, some
romance of Beethoven's, which he would play with no great
power of execution, indeed, but with a rare sweetness and
delicacy of touch and expression, and with an intense
absorption in the music, which communicated itself to even so
small a listener as Madelon.
It would have been hard to say which of the two had the more
enjoyment--she, as she sat motionless, her chin propped on her
two hands, her brown eyes gazing into space, and a hundred
dreamy fancies vaguely shaped by the music, flitting through
her brain; or he, as he bent over his violin, lovingly
exacting the sweet sounds, and his thoughts--who knows where? --
anywhere, one may be sure, rather than in the low-ceiled,
dusty garret, redolent of tobacco smoke, and not altogether
free from a suspicion of onions.
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