New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories; Theater -- Fiction
As I passed up the street, where I was in constant peril of losing my
footing, I saw his windows grow feebly alight. He had ignited the gas in
his room, which was that of the professor's sinister friend Schaaf.
My regard for the professor was born of his invariable goodness of
heart. Never did I know him to speak an uncharitable word of any one,
while his practical generosity was far greater than expected of a second
violinist. When I commended his magnanimity he would say, with a smile:
“My frient, you mistake altogedder. I am de most selfish man. Charity
cofers a multitude of sins. I haf so many sins to cofer.”
We called him the professor because besides fulfilling his nightly and
matinée duties at the theatre, he gave piano lessons to a few pupils,
and because those of us who could remember his long German surname could
not pronounce it.
One proof of the professor's beneficence had been his rescue of his
friend Schaaf on a bench in Madison Square one day, a recent arrival
from Germany, muttering despondently to himself. The professor learned
that he had been unable to secure employment, and that his last cent had
departed the day before. The professor took him home, clothed him and
cared for him until eventually another second violin was needed in the
---- Theatre orchestra.
Schaaf was now on his feet, for he was apt at the making of tunes,
and he picked up a few dollars now and then as a composer of songs and
waltzes.
All of which has little to do, apparently, with my post-midnight walk
in that freezing weather. As I turned into Broadway, I was surprised to
collide with my friend the doctor.
“I came out for a stroll and a bit to eat,” I said. “Won't you join
me? I know a snug little place that keeps open till two o'clock, where
devilled crabs are as good as the broiled oyster.”
“With pleasure,” he replied, cordially, still holding my hand; “not for
your food, but for your society. But do you know what you did when you
ran against me at the corner? For a long time I've been trying to recall
a certain tune that I heard once. Three minutes ago, as I was walking
along, it came back to me, and I was whistling it when you came up. You
knocked it quite out of mind. I'm sorry, for interesting circumstances
connected with my first hearing of it make it desirable that I should
remember it.”
“I can never express my regret,” I said. “But you may be able to catch
it again. Where were you when it came back to you three minutes ago?”
“Two blocks away, passing a church. I think it was the shining of the
electric light upon the stained glass window that brought it back to
me, for on the night of the day when I first heard it in Paris a strong
light was falling upon the stained glass windows of the church opposite
the house in which I had apartments.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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