His violin, with his
power to feel, and with his knowledge of technic added, could send
his message as far as sound could carry. He could afford to be
generous, and when he rose to play La Lettre d'Amour it was with the
elation of a knight entering the lists, with the ardor of a lover
singing beneath his lady's window. La Lettre d'Amour is a composition
written to a slow measure, and filled with chords of exquisite
pathos. It comes hesitatingly, like the confession of a lover who
loves so deeply that he halts to find words with which to express his
feelings. It moves in broken phrases, each note rising in intensity
and growing in beauty. It is not a burst of passionate appeal, but a
plea, tender, beseeching, and throbbing with melancholy. As he
played, Edouard stepped down from the dais on which the musicians
sat, and advanced slowly between the tables. It was late, and the
majority of those who had been dining had departed to the theatres.
Those who remained were lingering over their coffee, and were
smoking; their voices were lowered to a polite monotone; the rush of
the waiters had ceased, and the previous chatter had sunk to a
subdued murmur.
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