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Updated: June 11, 2025
Ronnie laid down his bow, and put his right arm round his wife. He still held the precious Infant of Prague between his knees, his left hand on the ebony finger-board. "My darling!" Helen said. "So we shall be at home for Christmas after all. How glad I am!" He looked at her dumbly, and waited.
His hands thin, slender, full of nerves which projected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed with claws like those on the terminations of bats' wings shook with senile trembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became firmer than steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any precious article an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a dish of Bohemian crystal.
He had a Japanese fiddle arranged with a violin finger-board, but thanks to the highly characteristic stubbornness of orchestral players, he was compelled to have this part played by a mandolin. Two Japanese drums, a whistle used by a Japanese shampooer, and a Japanese guitar were somehow permitted to add their accent.
It is a miniature cabinet-piano, without the keys or finger-board, and is played by similar mechanical means to that which gives utterance to the hand-organ; but of course it requires no bellows. There is one thing to be said in favour of these instruments they do not make much noise, and consequently are no very great nuisance individually.
He waited for the strong tremor to seize his wrist. It did not come. He sounded the four open strings, slowly, one after the other. Yes, the tones were very pure, very rich, very clear. Then he took courage, pressed his fingers into the finger-board, and began to play. Alas, poor Infant of Prague! Alas, poor born musician, who preferred doing things he had never learned to do!
Do thou like a leader of elephants rushing at a herd, pierce the ranks of the foe with straight arrows of golden wings, discharged from thy bow. Thy bow is even like a Vina. Its two ends represent the ivory pillows; its string, the main chord; its staff, the finger-board; and the arrows shot from it musical notes. Do thou strike in the midst of the foe that Vina of musical sound.
I entered a region of scrub timber further on, and met with nothing human for four miles, at the end of which distance I reached Difficult Creek, flowing through a rocky ravine, and crossed by a military bridge of logs. Through the thick woods to the right, I heard the roar of the Potomac, and a finger-board indicated that I was opposite Great Falls.
On this hint, the little violin first got excited upon one string, and then upon another, and then the bow rode a hand-gallop over two at once; then saw we four fingers flying as far up the finger-board as they could go, without falling overboard, near the bridge a dangerous place at all times from the currents and eddies and there provoking a series of sounds, as if the performer were pinching the tails of a dozen mice, that squeaked and squealed as he made the experiment.
The flames shot up, illumining the room. Ronnie returned to the Florentine chair, took the 'cello between his knees, placed his thumb behind its polished neck and his fingers on the ebony finger-board. He let them glide lightly up and down the strings, making no sound. Then he raised the bow in his right hand, and slowly, softly, sounded the four open notes.
An extremely interesting treble viol much in vogue in the eighteenth century was the viola d'amore, with fourteen strings, the seven of gut and silver being supplemented by seven sympathetic wire strings running below the finger-board and tuned in unison with the bowstrings, vibrating harmoniously while these are played.
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