ly forgotten the number; moreover it was
impossible to make out any signs in the darkness. At that moment a man
carrying a heavy load of vegetables passed me. "The old fellow is
scraping his fiddle again," he grumbled, "and disturbing decent people
in their night's rest." At the same time, as I went on, the soft,
sustained tone of a violin struck my ear. It seemed to come from the
open attic window of a hovel a short distance away, which, being low and
without an upper story like the rest of the houses, attracted attention
on account of this attic window in the gabled roof. I stood still. A
soft distinct note increased to loudness, diminished, died out, only to
rise again immediately to penetrating shrillness. It was always the same
tone repeated as if the player dwelt upon it with pleasure. At last an
interval followed; it was the chord of the fourth. While the player had
before reveled in the sound of the single note, now his voluptuous
enjoyment of this harmonic relation was very much more susceptible. His
fingers moved by fits and starts, as did his bow. Through the
intervening intervals he passed most unevenly, emphasizing and repeating
the third. Then he added the fifth, now with a trembling sound like
silent weeping, sustained, vanishing; now constantly repeated with dizzy
speed; always the same intervals, the same tones. And that was what the
old man called improvising. It _was_ improvising after all, but from the
viewpoint of the player, not from that of the listener.

I do not know how long this may have lasted and how frightful the
performance had become, when suddenly the door of the house was opened,
and a man, clad only in a shirt and partly buttoned trousers stepped
from the threshold into the middle of the street and called up to the
attic window--"Are you going to keep on all night again?" The tone of
his voice was impatient, but not harsh or insulting. The violin became
silent even before the speaker had finished. The man went back into the
house, the attic window was closed, and soon perfect and uninterrupted
silence reigned. I started for home, experiencing some difficulty in
finding my way through the unknown lanes, and, as I walked along, I
also improvised mentally, without, however, disturbing any one.

The morning hours have always been of peculiar value to me. It is as
though I felt the need of occupying myself with something ennobling,
something worth while, in the first hours of the day, thus