The Trespasser

Siegmund's violin, desired of Helena, lay in its case beside Siegmund's

lean portmanteau in the white dust of the lumber-room in Highgate. It

was worth twenty pounds, but Beatrice had not yet roused herself to sell

it; she kept the black case out of sight.

Siegmund's violin lay in the dark, folded up, as he had placed it for

the last time, with hasty, familiar hands, in its red silk shroud. After

two dead months the first string had snapped, sharply striking the

sensitive body of the instrument. The second string had broken near

Christmas, but no one had heard the faint moan of its going. The violin

lay mute in the dark, a faint odour of must creeping over the smooth,

soft wood. Its twisted, withered strings lay crisped from the anguish of

breaking, smothered under the silk folds. The fragrance of Siegmund

himself, with which the violin was steeped, slowly changed into an

odour of must.

Siegmund died out even from his violin. He had infused it with his life,

till its fibres had been as the tissue of his own flesh. Grasping his

violin, he seemed to have his fingers on the strings of his heart and of

the heart of Helena. It was his little beloved that drank his being and

turned it into music. And now Siegmund was dead; only an odour of must

remained of him in his violin.

It lay folded in silk in the dark, waiting. Six months before it had

longed for rest; during the last nights of the season, when Siegmund's

fingers had pressed too hard, when Siegmund's passion, and joy, and fear

had hurt, too, the soft body of his little beloved, the violin had

sickened for rest. On that last night of opera, without pity Siegmund

had struck the closing phrases from the fiddle, harsh in his impatience,

wild in anticipation.

The curtain came down, the great singers bowed, and Siegmund felt the

spattering roar of applause quicken his pulse. It was hoarse, and

savage, and startling on his inflamed soul, making him shiver with

anticipation, as if something had brushed his hot nakedness. Quickly,

with hands of habitual tenderness, he put his violin away.

The theatre-goers were tired, and life drained rapidly out of the

opera-house. The members of the orchestra rose, laughing, mingling their

weariness with good wishes for the holiday, with sly warning and

suggestive advice, pressing hands warmly ere they disbanded. Other years

Siegmund had lingered, unwilling to take the long farewell of his

associates of the orchestra. Other years he had left the opera-house

with a little pain of regret. Now he laughed, and took his comrades'

hands, and bade farewells, all distractedly, and with impatience. The

theatre, awesome now in its emptiness, he left gladly, hastening like a

flame stretched level on the wind.