'Pardon me, Monsieur! I beg you to fill your glass. I seem a poor host; but
to tell you the truth, I was dreaming; I was quite away, quite away.'
He threw out his hands, with a vague expansive gesture.
'Dear child!' he said to the flames, in French; 'good little one! I do not
forget thee.' And he began to tell me.
'It was when I was at Vienna, ah! a long while ago. I was not rich, but
neither was I very poor; I still had my little patrimony, and I lived in
the ---- Strasse, very economically; it is a quarter which many artists
frequent. I husbanded my resources, that I might be able to work away at my
art without the tedium of making it a means of livelihood. I refused many
offers to play in public, that I might have more leisure. I should not do
that now; but then, I was very confident; I had great faith in me. And
I worked very hard at my symphony, and I was full of desire to write an
opera. It was a tall dark house, where I lived; there were many other
lodgers, but I knew scarcely any of them. I went about with my head full
of music and I had my violin; I had no time to seek acquaintance. Only
my neighbour, at the other side of my passage, I knew slightly and bowed
to him when we met on the stairs.
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