The old man was known in the home as a musician that came from the theater and sometimes came by for the madam of the house. He was thought to be crazy. The musician smiled at the dancing and was truly pleased by it. The madam of the house even asked the musician in to dance after someone else did. Unfortunately, another dancer hit the musician in the back and the musician fell down on the ground and didn't get up. All the people laughed at first. Delyesof, the young man that was going to leave helped him up. The madam explained who is was. The musician smiled upon being helped up. The madame explained that he has had a very hard life. At this the musician got up with some effort and went into the middle of the dance hall and tried to dance again, but he was week and would have fallen if he had not been caught. When the musician was trying very hard he got a weird look on his face that was noticed by the others. The musician went to his violin and pulled it out telling the crowd that he was not hurt and that they needed music. Then the spectators started guessing at him - was he a sad case, did he have great talent, was he interesting?
2: The musician tuned the violin and set the pianist and the crowd to ready. Then he started playing well and at the exact moment when the first rays of the sun started flowing into the hall. The combination of this effect lit up every soul in the room. They all started listening to the pure and exact notes of the musician and they they were transported to a world they had never seen before as their souls were lifted up. The very body of the musician seemed to grow and the bent and broken form before the people started to move as if it were old. The old man radiated joy from every bit of his face. He was conscious of the power he was holding over the people. Once the pianist made a wrong note and this made the musician angry and he yelled, but he went back to his work. People were moved to crying during the performance and some people even tried not to move so they wouldn't expose their emotions to anyone else. Even D was moved to tears and even when he wiped them away he would get new ones and he was even transported back to his youth by the first strings of the violin. He remembered his first love for his cousin and wept for the time that would never come back again.
Albert's body shone with perspiration and his body was moving with the music and his veins bulging and he craved enjoyment. Then he stopped and his body went back to the way it was. It was bent again and his eyes didn't shine and his look was that of embarresment and he went into the other room.
3: Something had happened to all the people in the room. They all had a feeling of needing to explain what had just happened and what they felt, but they could not. They rebelled against the need to explain it all because they knew that they could not do it. Everyone was getting ready to leave, having enjoyed themselves and it being early morning. They even sent around a collection for him to thank him for his work. Albert was alone sitting satisfied with what he had done. The collection was rather large and D was chosen as the man to offer it to Albert. D was so taken by the music that he began to think of helping out Albert and making a man of him and setting him up in society. Albert asked for some wine and even then asked for some money since he was a poor man in a bad place and this is when the collection was taken up. D asked A if he would like to be set up and helped by D. The madam admitted that this was a nice gesture, but advised D not to do it. A said he wanted to play more music and would play as long as D wanted. All the other guests were making their way out of the hall to go home.
D went home with A, but as soon as they got in the carriage together D noticed the bad smell coming from A and the intoxication he was in. D started to regret his decision to do it and wondered what he had been thinking and how everything that A was saying was foolish. In the carriage A fell asleep and ended up on the floor. D got a better look at his calm and peaceful face and then he again started to remember the wonderful and magnanimous youth he had had and was at peace and no longer regretted his decision.
4: D woke and was surprised to see everything at his house that had always been that way. He was preparing to leave when he saw A laying in his dirty clothes on the divan sleeping the sleep of the damned. D told his servant to set A as well as he could in clean clothes and to borrow a violin from a friend. When he got back A was not there and the servant said that he had left taking the violin with him immediately after dinner. D got angry, but the servant said that he had only been instructed to give him clothes, not detain him. D was upset a bit. The servant explained what he did all day. He was cleaned up and given food, but didn't want to eat alone, so he ate with the staff. He drank Madeira in the morning and then played for them and made them all weep. D was pleased, but wanted A brought back. He felt very good about himself for taking the opportunity to help a man in need and didn't fall asleep for a long time. He thought that maybe A was not crazy, just an alcoholic. He had just fallen asleep after feeling very good about himself helping others when the servant and A came in. The servant said that A is wretched and that they took the violin from him.
5: A accosts D for going to be so early. A explained that he had been out doing the same thing this night as the last and now in clean clothes he looked fresh and innocent like a child. D looked into D's fresh smile and felt like having a good time and staying up with A and not being stern with him. The servant brought wine, cigarettes and the violin and then retreated to the next room. A started to tune, but D asked to just talk. A started to talk about all the nice aristocrats that he had just met at the party and about the man that knocked him down the night before. That man could also play music and A liked it. D did not like his music and wanted A to talk about his own music. Instead, A said that he thought the old music was music and the new music was music also. They started talking about the musicians that each liked. D said that someone had grown old and could play or sing like they used to. A disagreed and said that it was the fire in the musician that was most important and that they can never be old. A started to talk about another man that talked about art well, but that wasn't welcome at the Madame's house because of something. A continued to say that he himself had nothing and that he had no home or money or clothes and couldn't play at the theater anymore.
A started to play Don Juan and the hair on the back of the neck of D stood up. A decided that he had had too much to drink and couldn't play anymore that night. Despite this, A drank a whole glass off in once gulp and then D and A sat silently staring at each other. D was becoming more fond of A all the time. D asked A if he had ever been in love and A started telling the story from the beginning. A admits that he is not quit well now, but back when he was in love he had been and had a spot in the theater. A was a nobody and this love was an aristocratic lady. He got to accompany her on the violin once at her home, but it was a mistake and he should have only seen her at the theater. He later saw her again at the theater and she was there with a general and she smiled at A and he felt that even though she were there with the general that she was talking about A and smiled at him twice. A felt for the first time that he was not right in the orchestra, but that he was in the box with her. D says that it was the immagination. A disputes it and explains that he used to sleep there in the theater because he had nothing and that he went to her box and where she had sat. A explained that he felt as if he had actually been there and had kissed her hand. Then a wanted to go out again to the Madam's but they went to bed on D's decision. D asked his servant not to let A out without his permission.
6: D sees A sleeping and sees the child in his eyes and thinks he never wants to give him up. A wakes after noon and only wants something to drink. A pleads to have at least a little vodka, but D refuses and suggests coffee and breakfast. A just sits in his chair and looks out his window. Later, he can be found sitting still and looking at the stove. He refuses to play his violin and doesn't want to go to the theater or anywhere else. The look in his eyes was vacant and he looked feeble. All the next few days the same thing happened. A refused to play and wouldn't go anywhere. He only wanted something to drink. He brought out and left his violin a couple time. D tries to pacify him with books. The servant believes they are killing him. They continue to try for a fourth day. Nothing. The Servant and D talk about the waste and how this is the reward for trying to do a good dead. They rebuked him behind his back for not looking on them as saving him and for the good life they offer. At night A doesn't sleep. A stole the key to the liquor cabinet and drank all the vodka and started demanding to be let go. They let him go and D started to feel sorry for him after they had had such a nice time the first few nights.
7: A steps outside and is too drunk to feel the cold even though it is quite frosty out. He starts to recollect things from long ago and very recently. The theater and with D's servant. Everything became very muddled in his head and he walked very unsteadily and fell against things. He wandered to a large building and went inside and saw his friend Petrov who was railing against the others there that they had not appreciated him, A, while he was alive and that all he wanted was beauty. A man, D, rose up and attacked A for the bad things he did and for borrowing and not giving to mankind and living in destitution. Petrov yelled back that art demands the most of men and is the greatest thing in the world and men die trying to attain their art. A was said to have been the happiest man in the world. A tried to go up to P for saying these things, but P didn't recognize him and a policeman shooed him away. A tried to go to the Madam's, but he refused. He put his head against a wall and remembered more of P's talk. He heard many things, bells, music that told him in his head that he was the happiest man in the world. A tries to go back to the hall where P was speaking. At the hall, there was no P, but A himself was playing the violin. The violin he was holding was strange and made of glass. It only made sound when he rubbed it against his body, but he had to be careful or it would break. The sounds it made were the sweetest sounds he had ever heard and he was playing it well. Albert is obviously hallucinating and maybe in the delirium of dying. He hears bells that become the words about him being happy. The sounds annoy A and he quits playing and raises his hands to heaven. He then saw a woman that touched him and understood that what he was doing was wrong and then thought about where to go. He then understood that this was the woman that he had loved. He embraces her and they go out where there is a bright light. He was then brought into the madam's house because someone had almost tripped on him. He was unconscious and was alive and not with the woman he loved.
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