United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And if you had seen as much of them as I have, the 'sometimes' would be rare!" "Yet you play before them?" put in Max Graub. "Because I must do so to satisfy the impresarios who advertise me to the public," said Valdor. "Alas! why will the public be so foolish as to wish their favourite artist to play before kings and queens?
Max Graub had drawn a blank, so had Axel Regor, so had Louis Valdor and many others. At last it came to Leroy's turn, and as he walked up to the platform and ascended it, there was a look on his face which attracted the instant attention of all present.
"You play before kings, kings should be proud to hear you!" said Leroy. "Ah! So they should," responded Valdor promptly; "Only it happens that they are not! They treat me merely as a laquais de place, just as they would treat Zouche, had he accepted his Sovereign's offer. But this I will admit, that mediocre musicians always get on very well with Royal persons!
Valdor himself played the various violin solos which occurred frequently throughout the piece, and never failed to evoke a storm of rapturous plaudits, and many were the half-indignant glances of the audience towards the Royal shrine of draped satin, gilding, and electric light, wherein the King, like an idol, sat, undemonstrative, and apparently more bored than satisfied.
"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named Tahola, mightier far than Valdor. Him I threw after a long, long time, and his back also I broke. Again Lugur was pleased. And again we sat at table, he and the Russian and I. This time they spoke of something these Trolde have which opens up a Svaelc abysses into which all in its range drops up into the sky!" "What!" I exclaimed.
A great roar, like that of hundreds of famished wild beasts, answered this gesture; mingled with acclamations, and when 'The Song of Freedom' again burst out from the singers on the stage, the whole mass of people joined in the chorus with a kind of melodious madness. Shouts of 'Pequita! Pequita! rang out on all sides, then 'Valdor!
"For the King!" cried Johan Zegota, suddenly giving vent to the feelings he had long kept in check, feelings which had made him a greater admirer of the so-called "Pasquin Leroy" than of Thord himself; "For our sworn comrade, the King!" Again the cheers broke out, to be redoubled in intensity when Louis Valdor added his voice to the rest and exclaimed: "For the first real King I have ever known!"
Your news, Valdor," cried one or two eager voices, while several heads leaned forward in the direction of the fiercely- moustached man who sat next to Lotys. "Where have you been with your fiddle? Do you arrive among us to-night infected by the pay, or the purple of Royalty?" Louis Valdor, by birth a Norseman, and by sympathies a cosmopolitan, looked up with a satiric smile in his dark eyes.
Valdor! and then, all suddenly, a stentorian voice cried 'Sergius Thord! At that word the house became a chaos. Men in the gallery, seized by some extraordinary impulse of doing they knew not what, and going they knew not whither, leaped over each other's shoulders, and began to climb down by the pillars of the balconies to the stalls, and a universal panic and rush ensued.
"Thank God for music!" said Sergius Thord, as Valdor laid aside his bow; "It exorcises the evil spirit from every modern Saul!" "Sometimes!" responded Valdor; "But I have known cases where the evil spirit has been roused by music instead of suppressed. Art, like virtue, has two sides!" Zouche was still holding Pequita's hand.
Word Of The Day