"For long days I wait, and every day, at four, I am at the meeting-place in the wood, but no one comes, and there is no message, no word. All the time I feel as you feel now because Miss Iris has gone away and does not care. I wait and wait, but I can get no news, and I fear to go to the house because I shall perhaps harm mine Beloved, and she has told me what to do. Every day I am there, even in the rain, waiting. "At last she comes, with the violin under her arm, wrapped in her coat. 'I have only one minute,' she cries; 'they are going to take me away, and we can never see each other again. So I give you this. You must keep it, and when you are sad it will tell you how much I love you, how much I shall always love you. You will not forget me,' she says. There is just one instant more together, with the thunders and the lightnings all around us, then I am alone, except for mine violin. "Do you not see? There must always be pain. The dear God has made mine instrument, and in the same way He has made me, with the cutting and the bruises and the long night. I, too, have known the storm and all the fury of the winds and rain. Like the tree, I have aspired, I have grown upward, I have done the best I could. Otherwise, I should not be fitted to play on mine Cremona--I would not deserve to touch it, and so, in a way, I am glad. "I have had mine fame," he went on. "With the sorrow in mine heart, I have studied and worked until I have made mineself one great artist. If you do not believe, I can show you the papers, where much has been written of me and mine violin. Women have cried when I have played, and have thrown their red roses to me. I had the technique, and when the hurt broke open mine heart, I was immediately one artist. I understood, I could play, I could lift up all who suffered, because I had known suffering mineself. "Mine son, do you not understand? You can give only what you have. If one sorrow is in your heart, if you have learned the beauty and the nobility of it, you can teach others the same thing. You can show them how to rise above it, like the tree that had one long lifetime of hurt, and ended in mine Cremona to help all who hear. The one who plays the instrument must be made in the same way, of the same influences--the cutting, the night, and the cold. Of softness nothing good ever comes, for one must always fight. "Nothing in this whole world is free but the sun and the fresh air and the water to drink. We must pay the fair price for all else. I have had mine fame and I have paid mine price, but the heights are lonely, and sometimes I think it would be better to walk in the valley with a woman's hand in mine. But at the first, before I knew, I chose. I said: 'I will be an artist,' and so I am, but I have paid, oh, mine son, I have paid and I am still paying! There is no end!"