e adjoining room, and he
soon made out distinctly that B---- was flourishing on the instrument
in his usual style. He wished to get up, but felt himself held down as
if by a dead weight, and lying as if fettered in iron bonds; he was
utterly unable to move an inch. Then Antonia's voice was heard singing
low and soft; soon, however, it began to rise and rise in volume until
it became an ear-splitting fortissimo; and at length she passed over
into a powerfully impressive song which B---- had once composed for her
in the devotional style of the old masters. Krespel described his
condition as being incomprehensible, for terrible anguish was mingled
with a delight he had never experienced before. All at once he was
surrounded by a dazzling brightness, in which he beheld B---- and
Antonia locked in a close embrace, and gazing at each other in a
rapture of ecstasy. The music of the song and of the pianoforte
accompanying it went on without any visible signs that Antonia sang or
that B---- touched the instrument. Then the Councillor fell into a sort
of dead faint, whilst the images vanished away. On awakening he still
felt the terrible anguish of his dream. He rushed into Antonia's room.
She lay on the sofa, her eyes closed, a sweet angelic smile on her
face, her hands devoutly folded, and looking as if asleep and dreaming
of the joys and raptures of heaven. But she was--dead.

* * * * * * *

FOOTNOTES TO "THE CREMONA VIOLIN":

[Footnote 1: The Amati were a celebrated family of violin-makers of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, belonging to Cremona in Italy.
They form the connecting-link between the Brescian school of makers and
the greatest of all makers, Straduarius and Guanerius.]

[Footnote 2: A reference to Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_. Astolpho, an
English cousin of Orlando, was a great boaster, but generous,
courteous, gay, and remarkably handsome; he was carried to Alcina's
island on the back of a whale.]

[Footnote 3: Giuseppe Tartini, born in 1692, died in 1770; was one of
the most celebrated violinists of the eighteenth century, and the
discoverer (in 1714) of "resultant tones," or "Tartini's tones" as they
are frequently called. Most of his life was spent at Padua. He did much
to advance the art of the violinist, both by his compositions for that
instrument as well as by his treatise on its capabilities.]

[Footnote 4: This was the name of a well-known musical family fro