consecrating
the remainder of it, as it were. It is, therefore, only with difficulty
that I can make up my mind to leave my room early in the morning, and if
ever I force myself to do so without sufficient cause, nothing remains
to me for the rest of the day but the choice between idle distraction
and morbid introspection. Thus it happened that I put off for several
days my visit to the old man, which I had agreed to pay in the morning.
At last I could not master my impatience any longer, and went. I had no
difficulty in finding Gardener's Lane, nor the house. This time also I
heard the tones of the violin, but owing to the closed window they were
muffled and scarcely recognizable. I entered the house. A gardener's
wife, half speechless with amazement, showed me the steps leading up to
the attic. I stood before a low, badly fitting door, knocked, received
no answer, finally raised the latch and entered. I found myself in a
quite large, but otherwise extremely wretched chamber, the wall of which
on all sides followed the outlines of the pointed roof. Close by the
door was a dirty bed in loathsome disorder, surrounded by all signs of
neglect; opposite me, close beside the narrow window, was a second bed,
shabby but clean and most carefully made and covered. Before the window
stood a small table with music-paper and writing material, on the
windowsill a few flower-pots. The middle of the room from wall to wall
was designated along the floor by a heavy chalk line, and it is almost
impossible to imagine a more violent contrast between dirt and
cleanliness than existed on the two sides of the line, the equator of
this little world. The old man had placed his music-stand close to the
boundary line and was standing before it practising, completely and
carefully dressed. I have already said so much that is jarring about the
discords of my favorite--and I almost fear he is mine alone--that I
shall spare the reader a description of this infernal concert. As the
practice consisted chiefly of passage-work, there was no possibility of
recognizing the pieces he was playing, but this might not have been an
easy matter even under ordinary circumstances. After listening a while,
I finally discovered the thread leading out of this labyrinth--the
method in his madness, as it were. The old man enjoyed the music while
he was playing. His conception, however, distinguished between only two
kinds of effect, euphony and cacophony. Of these the fo