"Stem and branch! I loved my little sister Anna, too. But what did they
do to her behind those marble walls? Did you fiddle for her? What was
she when they let her go? My pretty little Anna! The fires of hell
for those damned green stones of yours, Stefani! She heard of them and
wanted to see them, and you promised."
"I? I never promised Anna! ... So that was it? Boris, I only saw her
there. I never knew what brought her. But the boy was in England then."
"The breed, the breed!" roared the squat man. "Ha, but you should have
seen! Those gay officers and their damned master--we left them with
their faces in the mud, Stefani; in the mud! And the women begged. Fine
music! Those proud hearts, begging Boris Karlov for their lives--their
faces in the mud! You, born of us in those Astrakhan Hills, you denied
us because you liked your fiddle and a full belly, and to play keeper
of those emeralds. The winding paths of torture and misery and death
by which they came into the possession of that house! And always the
proletariat has had to pay in blood and daughters. You, of the people,
to betray us!"
"I did not betray you. I only tried to save those who had been kind to
me."
A cunning light shot into Karlov's eyes. "The emeralds!" He struck his
pocket. "Here, Stefani; and they shall be broken up to buy bread for our
people."
"That poor boy! So he brought them! What are you going to do with me?"
"Watch you grow thin, Stefani. You want death; you shall want food
instead. Oh, a little; enough to keep you alive. You must learn what it
is to be hungry."
The squat man picked up the bundle from the table and tore off the
wrapping paper. A violin the colour of old Burgundy lay revealed.
"Boris!" The man in the chair writhed.
"Have I waked you, Stefani?"--tenderly. "The Stradivarius--the very
grand duke of fiddles! And he and his damned officers, how they used to
call out--'Get Stefani to fiddle for us!' And you fiddled, dragged your
genius though the mud to keep your belly warm!"
"To save a soul, Boris--the boy's. When I fiddled his uncle forgot
to drag him into an orgy. Ah, yes; I fiddled, fiddled because I had
promised his mother!"
"The Italian singer! She was lucky to die when she did. She did not see
the torch, the bayonet, and the mud. But the boy did--with his English
accent! How he escaped I don't know; but he died to-night, and the
emeralds are in my pocket. See!" Karlov held the instrument close to
the other's face. "Look at it well, this grand duke of fiddles. Look,
fiddler, look!"