The Lost Stradivarius | Page 9

were not visible, as he
kept them cast down, resting his head on his hand in the attitude of one
listening. His face and even his dress were impressed so vividly upon
John's mind, that he never had any difficulty in recalling them to his
imagination; and he and I had afterwards an opportunity of verifying
them in a remarkable manner. He wore a long cut-away coat of green
cloth with an edge of gold embroidery, and a white satin waistcoat
figured with rose-sprigs, a full cravat of rich lace, knee-breeches of buff
silk, and stockings of the same. His shoes were of polished black
leather with heavy silver buckles, and his costume in general recalled
that worn a century ago. As my brother gazed at him, he got up, putting
his hands on the arms of the chair to raise himself, and causing the
creaking so often heard before. The hands forced themselves on my
brother's notice: they were very white, with the long delicate fingers of
a musician. He showed a considerable height; and still keeping his eyes
on the floor, walked with an ordinary gait towards the end of the
bookcase at the side of the room farthest from the window. He reached
the bookcase, and then John suddenly lost sight of him. The figure did
not fade gradually, but went out, as it were, like the flame of a suddenly
extinguished candle.
The room was now filled with the clear light of the summer morning:
the whole vision had lasted but a few seconds, but my brother knew
that there was no possibility of his having been mistaken, that the
mystery of the creaking chair was solved, that he had seen the man who
had come evening by evening for a month past to listen to the rhythm
of the Gagliarda. Terribly disturbed, he sat for some time half dreading
and half expecting a return of the figure; but all remained unchanged:
he saw nothing, nor did he dare to challenge its reappearance by
playing again the Gagliarda, which seemed to have so strange an
attraction for it. At last, in the full sunlight of a late June morning at
Oxford, he heard the steps of early pedestrians on the pavement below

his windows, the cry of a milkman, and other sounds which showed the
world was awake. It was after six o'clock, and going to his bedroom he
flung himself on the outside of the bed for an hour's troubled slumber.
CHAPTER IV
When his servant called him about eight o'clock my brother sent a note
to Mr. Gaskell at New College, begging him to come round to
Magdalen Hall as soon as might be in the course of the morning. His
summons was at once obeyed, and Mr. Gaskell was with him before he
had finished breakfast. My brother was still much agitated, and at once
told him what had happened the night before, detailing the various
circumstances with minuteness, and not even concealing from him the
sentiments which he entertained towards Miss Constance Temple. In
narrating the appearance which he had seen in the chair, his agitation
was still so excessive that he had difficulty in controlling his voice.
Mr. Gaskell heard him with much attention, and did not at once reply
when John had finished his narration. At length he said, "I suppose
many friends would think it right to affect, even if they did not feel, an
incredulity as to what you have just told me. They might consider it
more prudent to attempt to allay your distress by persuading you that
what you have seen has no objective reality, but is merely the phantasm
of an excited imagination; that if you had not been in love, had not sat
up all night, and had not thus overtaxed your physical powers, you
would have seen no vision. I shall not argue thus, for I am as certainly
convinced as of the fact that we sit here, that on all the nights when we
have played this suite called the 'Areopagita,' there has been some one
listening to us, and that you have at length been fortunate or
unfortunate enough to see him."
"Do not say fortunate," said my brother; "for I feel as though I shall
never recover from last night's shock."
"That is likely enough," Mr. Gaskell answered, coolly; "for as in the
history of the race or individual, increased culture and a finer mental
susceptibility necessarily impair the brute courage and powers of

endurance which we note in savages, so any supernatural vision such as
you have seen must be purchased at the cost of physical reaction. From
the first evening that we played this music, and heard the noises
mimicking so closely the sitting down and rising up of some