“Not exactly that.  It took a long time.  I was obliged to leave my home, for other reasons, and then I played from door to door, and from town to town, for whatever coppers were thrown to me.  I had never heard any good music, and so I played the things that came into my head.  By and bye people would make me stay with them awhile, for my music sake.  But I never stayed long.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot tell you now,” said Benoni, looking grave and almost sad:  “it is a very long story.  I have travelled a great deal, preferring a life of adventure.  But of late money has grown to be so important a thing that I have given a series of great concerts, and have become rich enough to play for my own pleasure.  Besides, though I travel so much, I like society, and I know many people everywhere.  To-night, for instance, though I have been in Rome only a week, I have been to a dinner party, to the theatre, to a reception, and to a ball.  Everybody invites me as soon as I arrive.  I am very popular,—­and yet I am a Jew,” he added, laughing in an odd way.

“But you are a merry Jew,” said Nino, laughing too, “besides being a great genius.  I do not wonder people invite you.”

“It is better to be merry than sad,” replied Benoni.  “In the course of a long life I have found out that.”

“You do not look so very old,” said Nino.  “How old are you?”

“That is a rude question,” said his host, laughing.  “But I will improvise a piece of music for you.”  He took his violin, and stood up before the broken pier-glass.  Then he laid the bow over the strings and struck a chord.  “What is that?” he asked, sustaining the sound.

“The common chord of A minor,” answered Nino immediately.

“You have a good ear,” said Benoni, still playing the same notes, so that the constant monotony of them buzzed like a vexatious insect in Nino’s hearing.  Still the old man sawed the bow over the same strings without change.  On and on, the same everlasting chord, till Nino thought he must go mad.

“It is intolerable; for the love of heaven, stop!” he cried, pushing back his chair and beginning to pace the room.  Benoni only smiled, and went on as unchangingly as ever.  Nino could bear it no longer, being very sensitive about sounds, and he made for the door.

“You cannot get out,—­I have the key in my pocket,” said Benoni, without stopping.

Then Nino became nearly frantic, and made at the Jew to wrest the instrument from his hands.  But Benoni was agile, and eluded him, still playing vigorously the one chord, till Nino cried aloud, and sank in a chair, entirely overcome by the torture, that seemed boring its way into his brain like a corkscrew.

“This,” said Benoni, the bow still sawing the strings, “is life without laughter.  Now let us laugh a little, and see the effect.”