It pleased him well to have his mind diverted and employed. But it did not please him when he saw how those theatrical princesses to-day proferred love to this man, and to-morrow to that; to see them kiss and embrace one man to-day, and to-morrow another. This ran so counter to his ideas that sometimes he would not have grudged his words, if he could have told them what place they had in his esteem.
Sometimes also on the stage was the wood which he had seen here for the first time with Krista, and which reminded him of the hillside and wood, with the hollow tree at the outskirts of the wood.
Sometimes also he was asked to play a tune in that wood; and he played till he made people weep or whistle; for from his strings spoke both weeping and laughter.
Then they held Venik in respect and honour: they led him to a music master, with whom he studied and played all day long. They also taught him many things which he played to their admiration finely and touchingly. But still he only rose far above the rest, when he played those songs of his own just as he had taught them to himself on the hillside. Then, indeed, it was just as though the whole hillside breathed out of him, as though all the wood resounded in his strings, as if even the birds were full of voice, as if even the river played which gurgled far below. Of these songs people could not have enough, and called for them again
