NICOLO AND GIANETTA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 997, 8 December 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

NICOLO AND GIANETTA.

It was a beautiful afternoon in May, nearly a hundred years ago, when a boy might have been seen walking thoughtfully along the flowery banks of a little stream near Genoa, Italy. His back was turned to the gay village, and his grave eyes fixed upon the river, darkening beneath the swaying shadow of the trees. He seemed not to heed the warble of the birds, the hum of bees in the blossoms, the laughter of some children frolicing in the meadows, nor yet the gay jingling of merry marriage bells, for fair Elsie had that day given her self into the keeping of honest Arnold, the miller, and all the villagers were making merry over the event. As he stopped, lost in thought, the joyous voice of a child broke upon his musings, and a little girl, scarcely ten years of age, came running across the waving field. She threw her arms about his neck, overwhelmed him with caresses, and then crying, " Oh, you naughty boy, you naughty Nicolo. What are you doing here ? " " I have been hunting, you see." She gave him a basket filled with lovely wild roses and trailing vines.

The boy's face brightened with a smile as he looked into her laughing eyes ; stroking her flossy curls he whispered : " I ran away from my father, Gianetta, I was so tired. I had been practising all day, and when he gave me leave to rest a little while, I came to this quiet spot— you know I love the gentle music of this murmuring river."

"Oh, Nicolo," cried Gianetta, her fair young face saddened by the thought, "it is too bad that your father torments you so much with those hateful exercises. Mother said to-day that you were too delicate to work so hard — that bewitched violin will be the death of you. You are growing pale and thin," she added, as she looked anxiously at his worn, sorrowful face and his dark eyes, which flashed with strange brilliancy. "Oh, Gianetta, do not fear for me," replied Nicolo, drawing himself up to his full height while a smile of rare tenderness and sweetness rested on his lips ; "my father does, indeed, make me work very hard, but that must be. Think of the wonderful Mozart, world-renowned music king, who was famous when he was only six years old, and here am I, almost fourteen. But I shall not die. I shall grow to be a man, and all the world will listen to my violin."

" But surely, Nicolo, you are not so small beside him. Mother has often told me how wonderfully you played in the grand concert hall when you were not so old as I. You were only nine years old then," and now her words came fast, her eyes gleamed with joy as she repeated the story her mother had so often told her of the triumph of Nicolo; "the grand ladies were there. They looked like a bed of flowers after a dewy, summer night : one scarcely dared to breathe, and when you played it was so still that mother said she thought it was like the church during prayer time, and then how they shouted and praised you." Thus did the loving Gianetta try to enliven her favorite playmate, and soon he was listening with a pleasant smile to her merry chatter about her doves, her flowers, her dolls, for, in truth, he was very fond of the little maiden who so often amused him when he was tired from long hours of steady practicing of monotonous exercises. The children remained out in the fields till the stars came out, one after another, smiling alike on the serious eyes of Nicolo, and the drowsy ones of pretty Gianetta ; there sounded the tinkle of the little altar bell in the chapel on the hill, and the praising voices of the choir. Then the two turned their steps homeward, and, following a long narrow lane, reached at its end two humble cottages, overgrown with vines, one the home of Nicolo, the young musician, who that day had foretold the greatness which a whole world acknowledged gladly in aftei years, when as Paganini the violinist, he charmed it by his wonderful playing, whose remarkable accuracy was acquired in those years of patient practice under the instructions of his father. But we left the children at the cottage gate of Gianetta, whose mother stood on the threshold anxiously awaiting the return of the children, whom she tenderly embraced as they came up to her ; then the children separated with a pleasant " good-night," and Nicolo crossed over to his own home.

He found the dingy rooms deserted ; his father had gone, he knew not where, and old Margot was asleep, so there was no one to question him. Nicolo led a lonely life, his father was a relentless master; his dead mother he only dimly remembered as having smiled upon him with ineffable sweetness as she sang him to sleep with her gentle lullaby, but that was so long ago — oh, s« long, and now he had no friends save Gianetta and her mother, both of whom loved the dreamy reserved lad. But the boy bad one solace which never failed him ; that was his beloved violin, from whose strings he could draw the most entrancing strains of music, dying away at times into wondrous sadness, then swelling into triumphant joy. So to-night he raised the window to let in the mild night air, and seating himself near the casement with his violin, tone after tone came leaping from the strings and bounding from underneath the bow, as though they had been long imprisoned, and rejoiced to be set free ; and then the melody grew slower and softer — he was remembering a tune his mother used to sing, and that gentle sound was the last thing little Gianetta heard before her sweet soul wandered into dreamland. Nicolo played till his eyelids closed in sleep, and not until the sun shone into his eyes did he wake from his sound slumbers.

Several days passed, and the children did not see each other, for Nicolo's father inoreased his work ; one evening, utterly worn out with long hours of steady practice, he leaned his head against the window, and longed for Gianetta with her soothing hands and merry voice; suddenly he heard his name called in a sharp cry by Gianetta's mother. Hastening across to his playmate's home he found her lying in bed, her breath coming hard and Blow, hex form racked by pain and fever. She did not speak to him* but he knew the wish she expressed so stronly in her glassy sunken eyes; with tears in his own, he ran swiftly for his violin ; then, forgetting bis fatigue, he played for her with all the fervor of his soul. His anguish, his hone, his love, all seemed to breathe from,

the woadrous ones, which quietea the sick child, who, with her little hands clasped as if in prayer, listened in rapture. "Oh 1 " said she, " it sounds like angels' voices in the air," and indeed, even then, the angels were oalling Gianetta. She did not grieve for herself, but for her mother and litlle Nicolo left behind. Her last words were to her playmate " Dear Nicolo, do not grieve for me. You cannot follow me ; you must remain behind ; but far from this place you will be famous ; all the world will speak your name— oh, then, do not forget your little Gianetta." And then the sweet eyes closed forever, and the lips were dumb. Once more only, did Nicolo play the sweet sad strains which Gianetta had so loved ; they were a requiem for her soul, and the dead child lying upon her narrow bed almost hidden by the wild roses which she had so loved in life, seemed almost to smile at the message of the music, and even the flowers seemed to nod their half open petals. And when the red rays of the sinking sun fell across a new made grave in the quiet churchyard, Nicolo, with his beloved violin under hia arm, said farewell to the village where everything so recalled his cruel loss; and, as Gianetta told him, far from there he found fame, for the world crowned Nicol Paganini with honor as the marvellous " Violin King.g But the memory of little Gianetta always re i mained with him, though the world saw not the beginning nor end of the thread that had so woven itself into this wonderful artist's life.

Cousin Virginia.