at it is that I have. 'It
is most wonderful,' I say, and then the door opens and one very angry
lady stands there.

"She tells me that I shall never come into that house again, that I must
go right away, that I have no--what do you say?--no social place, and
that I am not to speak with her daughter. To her she says: 'I will
attend to you very soon.' We creep down the stairs together and mine
Beloved whispers: 'Every day at four, at the old place, until I come.' I
understand and I go away, but mine heart is very troubled for her.

"For long days I wait, and every day, at four, I am at the
meeting-place in the wood, but no one comes, and there is no message, no
word. All the time I feel as you feel now because Miss Iris has gone
away and does not care. I wait and wait, but I can get no news, and I
fear to go to the house because I shall perhaps harm mine Beloved, and
she has told me what to do. Every day I am there, even in the rain,
waiting.

"At last she comes, with the violin under her arm, wrapped in her coat.
'I have only one minute,' she cries; 'they are going to take me away,
and we can never see each other again. So I give you this. You must keep
it, and when you are sad it will tell you how much I love you, how much
I shall always love you. You will not forget me,' she says. There is
just one instant more together, with the thunders and the lightnings all
around us, then I am alone, except for mine violin.

"Do you not see? There must always be pain. The dear God has made mine
instrument, and in the same way He has made me, with the cutting and the
bruises and the long night. I, too, have known the storm and all the
fury of the winds and rain. Like the tree, I have aspired, I have grown
upward, I have done the best I could. Otherwise, I should not be fitted
to play on mine Cremona--I would not deserve to touch it, and so, in a
way, I am glad.

"I have had mine fame," he went on. "With the sorrow in mine heart, I
have studied and worked until I have made mineself one great artist. If
you do not believe, I can show you the papers, where much has been
written of me and mine violin. Women have cried when I have played, and
have thrown their red roses to me. I had the technique, and when the
hurt broke open mine heart, I was immediately one artist. I understood,
I could play, I could lift up all who suffered, because I had known
suffering mineself.

"Mine son, do you not understand? You can give only what you h