"
He wanted to find words, but for consciousness of self, could not.
"It's a wonderful house out there waiting for you, Leon Kantor, and
you--you're wonderful, too!"
"The--flowers--thanks!"
"My father, he sent them. Come, father--quick!"
Suddenly there was a tight tensity seemed to crowd up the little room.
"Abrahm--quick--get Hancock. That first row of chairs--has got to be
moved. There he is, in the wings. See that the piano ain't dragged down
too far! Leon, got your mute in your pocket? Please, Mr. Ginsberg--you
must excuse--Here, Leon, is your glass of water; drink it, I say. Shut
that door out there, boy, so there ain't a draught in the wings. Here,
Leon, your violin. Got your neckerchief? Listen how they're shouting!
It's for you--Leon--darlink--Go!"
The center of that vast human bowl which had shouted itself out, slim,
boylike, and in his supreme isolation, Leon Kantor drew bow and a first
thin, pellucid, and perfect note into a silence breathless to
receive it.
Throughout the arduous flexuosities of the Mendelssohn E minor concerto,
singing, winding from tonal to tonal climax, and out of the slow
movement which is like a tourniquet twisting the heart into the spirited
_allegro molto vivace_, it was as if beneath Leon Kantor's fingers the
strings were living vein-cords, youth, vitality, and the very foam of
exuberance racing through them.
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