th which the master was wont to sound the
strings; with the other hand she stroked the old man's grey beard, and
said with a curtsy:--

"Jankiel, be so good; you see this is my betrothal; play for me, Jankiel.
Haven't you often promised to play at my wedding?"

Jankiel, who was beyond measure fond of Zosia, nodded his beard as a sign
that he did not refuse. So they led him into the centre of the company and
put his instrument on his knees; he gazed on it with delight and pride,
like a veteran called back to active service, when his grandsons take down
from the wall his heavy sword: the old man laughs, though it is long since
he has had a sword in his hand, for he feels that his hand will not yet
betray the weapon.

Meanwhile two of his pupils were kneeling by the dulcimer, tuning the
strings afresh and twanging them as a test of their work. Jankiel with
half-closed eyes sat silent and held the hammers motionless in his
fingers.

He lowered them, at first beating a triumphal measure; then he smote the
strings more briskly, as with a torrent of rain: all were amazed, but that
was only a test, for he suddenly broke off and lifted both hammers aloft.

He played anew; now the strings trembled with motions as light as though
the wing of a fly were sounding on the string, giving forth a gentle,
hardly audible buzzing. The master fixed his gaze on the sky, awaiting
inspiration; he looked down and surveyed the instrument with a haughty
eye, he raised his hands and lowered them together, and smote with both
hammers at once; the auditors were amazed.--

All at once from many strings there burst forth a sound as though a whole
janissaries' band had become vocal with bells and cymbals and drums.227
The _Polonaise of the Third of May_228 thundered forth! The rippling
notes breathed of joy, they poured joy into one's ears; the girls wanted
to dance and the boys could not stand still--but the notes carried the
thoughts of the old men back into the past, to those happy years when the
Senate and the House of Deputies, after that great day of the Third of
May, celebrated in the assembly hall the reconciliation of King and
Nation; when they danced and sang, "Vivat our beloved King, vivat the
Diet, vivat the people, vivat all classes!"

The master kept quickening the time and playing with greater power, but
suddenly he struck a false chord like the hiss of a snake, like the
grating of iron on glass--it sent a shudder through every o