my father the cue as to what songs to play, and it was only the sad songs which came to my mind. Never before I did I myself feel so deeply moved by those songs. Involuntarily my eyes turned in the direction of the sick girl, and I saw her listen with a wraptness that shone in her great eyes. Large tears rolled slowly down her wasted cheeks.
"Sing something jolly, boytchikl, not so sad,' said the woman who stood near her.
"No, no, mamma,' the girl interposed. 'I don't want anything jolly. I like that one. Please sing it again.' She turned her face to me and I saw a very faint flush of color come over it.
"I sang the same song again:
In the forest stands a little tree,Its blossoms now are all returning;But within me, lonesome little lad,How my little heart is yearning!How my little heart is yearning!
“I picked up my pennies and went on. But wherever I went that day, and whatever I sang the pale face and sad eyes of that girl haunted me. I found no pleasure in the jolly, rollicking, roguish ‚songs, — ditties. for example, like the one that ends:
Black cherries do we pluck,The red we leave behind:Handsome fellows do we take,The homely? Never mind!
“I began to lead my father frequently to the back-yard on which the girl’s window opened. Invariably I would find her seated in her armchair in the midst of her pillows with the little woman standing over her; and when I came and our eyes met, I read in hers that she had been expecting me, that she was glad and grateful that I came. And I used to sing for her, for her alone. Never before did I find those songs so tender and beautiful, never before did I find such keen joy in singing them,—or in singing anything else. Never before and never since.
"In some strange way all those songs seemed to have acquired a direct and personal meaning. She would listen with those sad, deep eyes of hers and drink in the sounds of my voice.
"But I noticed as time went on that the frail figure in the big chair was shrinking. The eyes in the little face were becoming larger. She would just raise a tiny finger, and I knew she wanted me to repeat. This one, for example, she would ask me to sing again and again.
To the sea there runs a brooklet, runs a brookletAnd none can ever stay itDeep within my heart I love youTo no one dare I say it. . .
"Did I know at the time that the tiny stream of her life was about to fall into the Great Sea? I can not say. I was too young to think of inquiring into the nature of her malady. I only knew that every time I left that back-yard it was with a tighter contraction of the heart, with a vague dread that something was impending. But I do not remember observing in her expression any signs of suffering, nothing but a wonderful sadness, deep and placid. After some time one song in particular seemed to answer to her mood, and I would always have to repeat it. I do not recall it all, but this is the refrain:
The years are going, the years are flying,Like smoke they vanish silentlyFrom the best and fondest love, dear,Now you pass away from me. . .
"One day as I entered the yard and looked up to her window, she was not there. A terrible dread came over me. But in a little while the thin little mother appeared at the window and said:
"Sing, boytchikl, sing; she is in bed but she can hear you."
"So the mother stood at the window and transmitted to me her wishes. Before I went that day the little woman had asked me questions about my father and myself and where we lived, and many other things that she told me her daughter wished to know.
“It must have been no more than a week later when, one evening, as I was scraping away at a violin at home, the door opened and a lad of about my own age came in and asked if the ‘boy who sings in the vards is here?’ I stepped forward.
"Come,' he said, 'She wants you.'
"No need for me to ask who. We ran through the streets and the messenger led me to the room where she lay, the room that opened on the yard where I used to sing to her. About the bed were gathered—but why describe that scene? I was taken to the bedside. She looked up to me and feebly moved her hand. I took it in mine. 'Thank you,' she said, 'I want to thank you—' but she could say no more. . . And near me. . . the mother. . . Ah, my friends. . ."
Bolimov stopped, and this time the charming young thing who never took her eyes off the narrator except to dry her little tears in her little embroided handkerchief, was not mistaken. The eyes of the great singer were moist.
"Well, my friends," he roused himself, "Those audiences to which I sang the Jewish folk-songs in the tenement back-yards seem to me to answer most fully to the fine description of the ideal audience our friend the critic gave us. That was all I wished to tell you."
Te U A a ee Ya a eh San ee RE Fr re Ak er A ei “By the way,” the self-assured tones of the critic broke the silence. “Those folk-songs seem to have value. I must look them up.” And, taking out his gold-filligree fountain-pen and note book, he made a careful memorandum and then changed the subiect.