The Rebel Angels

At her direction, Yerko took a knife and deftly broke the heavy wax seal at the uppermost end of one of the small copper vessels, lifted the lid – which took strength because it was a tight fit – and at once a powerful essence of the prevailing smell escaped. Inside, in a bed of what looked like dark-brown earth, lay a figure swathed in woollen cloth.

"Real wool, carefully spun so that I know that not a thread of rubbish has been sneaked into it. This must be the proper lamb's-wool, or it is not good."

She unwrapped the figure, which was bandaged at least six layers deep, and there we saw a violin.

"The great lady is undressed for her sleep," said Mamusia, and indeed the violin had no bridge, no strings, no pegs, and looked very much like someone in déshabillé. "You see that the sleep is coming on her; the varnish is already a little dulled, but she is breathing, she is sinking into her trance. In six months she will be wakened by me, her cunning servant, and I shall dress her again and she will go back to the world with her voice in perfect order."

Hollier put out his hand to touch the brown dust that surrounded the woollen cloth. "Damp," he said.

"Of course it is damp. And it is alive, too. Don't you know what that is?"

He sniffed at his fingers, but shook his head.

"Horse dung," said Mamusia. "The best; thoroughly rotted and sieved, and from horses in mighty health. This comes from a racing stable, and you wouldn't believe what they make me pay for it. But the shit of old nags isn't what I want. The very best is demanded for the very best. She's a Bergonzi, this sleeper," she said, tapping the violin lightly. "Ignorant people chatter about Strads, and Guarneris, and they are magnificent. I like a Bergonzi. But the best is a St. Petersburg Leman; that's one over there, in her fourth month – or will be when the moon is new. They must be put to bed according to the moon," she said, cocking an eye at Hollier to see how he would take that.

"And where do they come from, all these great ladies and gentlemen?" he said, looking around the room, in which there were probably forty cases of various sizes.

"From my friends the great artists," said Mamusia. "I must not tell whose fiddles these are. But the great artists know me, and when they come here – and they all do come to this city, sometimes every year – they bring me a fiddle that needs a rest, or has come down with some trouble of the voice. I have the skill and the love to make everything right. Because you see this asks for understanding that goes beyond anything the cleverest craftsman can learn. And you must be a fiddler yourself, to test and judge. I am a very fine fiddler."

"Who could doubt it?" said Hollier. "I hope that some day I may have the great honour of hearing you. It would be like listening to the voice of the ages."

"You may say that," said Mamusia, who was enjoying every instant of the courtly conversation. "I have played on some of the noblest instruments in the world – because these are not just violins, you know, but violas, and those big fellows over there are the violoncellos, and those biggest of all are the big-burly-bumbles, the double basses, which have a way of going very gruff when they have to travel – and I can make them speak secrets like a doctor. The great player, oh yes, he makes them sing, but Oraga Laoutaro makes them whisper what is wrong, and then sing for joy when it is wrong no longer. – This room should not be open; Yerko, cover Madame until I can come back and put her to bed again."

Upstairs then, and after a tremendous exchange of compliments between Hollier and Mamusia, I drove him home in my little car.

What a success it had been! Well worth a few blows and a lot of cursing from Mamusia, for it had brought me near to Hollier again. I could feel his enthusiasm. But it was not directly for me.

"I know you won't be offended, Maria," he said, "but your Mother is an extraordinary discovery, a living fossil. She might have come out of any age, from the nineteenth century in Hungary to anywhere in Europe for six or seven centuries back. That wonderful boasting! It refreshed me to hear her, because it was like Paracelsus himself, that very great man and emperor of boasters. And you remember what he said: Never hope to find wisdom at the high colleges alone – consult old women, Gypsies, magicians, wanderers, and all manner of peasant folk and random folk, and learn from them, for these have more knowledge about such things than all the high colleges."

"What about Professor Froats?" I said, "with his search in the dung-heap for a jewel that he suspects may be there, but of whose nature he can hardly guess?"