ne, and mingled
with the general gaiety an ill-omened foreboding. Disturbed and alarmed,
the hearers wondered whether the instrument might not be out of tune, or
the musician be making a blunder. Such a master had not blundered! He
purposely kept touching that traitorous string and breaking up the melody,
striking louder and louder that angry chord, confederated against the
harmony of the tones; at last the Warden understood the master, covered
his face in his hands, and cried, "I know, I know those notes; that is
_Targowica!_" And suddenly the ill-omened string broke with a hiss; the
musician rushed to the treble notes, broke up and confused the measure,
abandoned the treble notes, and hurried his hammers to the bass strings.

One could hear louder and louder a thousand noises, measured marching,
war, an attack, a storm; one could hear the reports of guns, the groans of
children, the weeping of mothers. So finely did the wonderful master
render the horrors of a storm that the village girls trembled, calling to
mind with tears of grief the Massacre of Praga,229 which they knew from
song and story; they were glad when finally the master thundered with all
the strings at once, and choked the outcries as though he had crushed them
into the earth.

Hardly did the hearers have time to recover from their amazement, when
once more the music changed: at first there were once more light and
gentle hummings; a few thin strings complained together, like flies
striving to free themselves from the spider's web. But more and more
strings joined them; now the scattered tones were blended and legions of
chords were united; now they advanced measuredly with harmonious notes,
forming the mourrlful melody of that famous song of the wandering soldier
who travels through woods and through forests, ofttimes fainting with woe
and with hunger: at last he falls at the feet of his faithful steed, and
the steed with his foot digs a grave for him. A poor old song, yet very
dear to the Polish troops! The soldiers recognized it, and the privates
crowded about the master; they hearkened, and they remembered that
dreadful season when over the grave of their country they had sung this
song and departed for the ends of the earth; they called to mind their
long years of wandering, over lands and seas, over frosts and burning
sands, amid foreign peoples, where often in camp they had been cheered and
heartened by this folk song. So thinking, they sadly bow