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Strange sea-tangles, new to the European eye, the bones of whales, or sometimes a whole whale's carcase, white with carrion-gulls and poisoning the wind, lie scattered here and there along the sands. The waves come in slowly, vast and green, curve their translucent necks, and burst with a surprising uproar, that runs, waxing and waning, up and down the long key-board of the beach.
The Princess F. L., who had been loved by Kosciuszko, in her last days, when age had enfeebled all her faculties, was only sensible to the chords of this piece, which her trembling hands could still find upon the key-board, though the dim and aged eye could no longer see the keys.
There was perhaps no man living whose hands were more nearly at home upon the key-board of a piano, or whose mind was more disdainful of other people's opinions. But of the fact that he was suffering from incipient stage fright there could be no doubt whatever. Would this inoculate his playing, keep the soul out of it?
Of Rose, crouched under the key-board of the grand piano, her hands on the pedals, nothing could be seen, owing to a grouping of small palms and flowers in pots. The stump of Blizzard's right leg touched her shoulder. She was trembling. So was Blizzard. He was trembling with stage fright; she with Blizzard fright.
Maranne noticed that sullen humor, that evident weariness on the part of the audience, and as he reflected upon the change that would be wrought by the success of his drama in his modest life, now made up entirely of hopes, he asked himself, in an agony of dread, what he could do to bring his thoughts home to that multitude of human beings, to force them to lay aside their preoccupied manner, to set in motion in that vast throng a single current which would attract to him those distraught glances, those minds, now scattered over all the notes in the key-board and so difficult to bring into harmony.
But let the unfortunate crouched under the key-board, her trembling hands taking the place of those feet which the master had lost, respond stupidly to the signals conveyed to her shoulder by graduated pressures from the stump of his right leg, and punishment of blows, pinchings, and sarcasms was swift and sure. The legless man was very much at home in his own house.
She led the way back into the parlor, and drew a finger along the key-board of the piano as she passed by. "Anybody who wants to send a few new pieces of lively music may do so." Two or three late lunchers had come in and were clattering their knives and forks at the table opposite the girl whom Jane had called Sophie.
Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one.
On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the musician was deaf. Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was cursed with the loss of his most precious faculty.
Even Alec noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled. "Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried. The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite lost his awe of the man he attended. "Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said.
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