He seemed to question the dumb wood with faltering sagacity
and in his gestures there was something marvelous as well as
infantile. At last he undertook with grotesque gestures to place the
violin under his chin, while in one hand he held the neck; but like a
spoiled child he soon wearied of a study which required skill not to
be obtained in a moment and he twitched the strings without being able
to draw forth anything but discordant sounds. He seemed annoyed, laid
the violin on the window-sill and snatching up the bow he began to
push it to and fro with violence, like a mason sawing a block of
stone. This effort only succeeded in wearying his fastidious ears, and
he took the bow with both hands and snapped it in two on the innocent
instrument, source of harmony and delight. It seemed as if I saw
before me a schoolboy holding under him a companion lying face
downwards, while he pommeled him with a shower of blows from his fist,
as if to punish him for some delinquency. The violin being now tried
and condemned, the monkey sat down upon the fragments of it and amused
himself with stupid joy in mixing up the yellow strings of the broken
bow.
Never since that day have I been able to look upon the home of the
predestined without comparing the majority of husbands to this
orang-outang trying to play the violin.
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