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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays, by

Willa Cather

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Title: A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays

Author: Willa Cather

Release Date: May 24, 2008 [EBook #25586]

Last updated: January 31, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COLLECTION OF STORIES ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Barbara Tozier and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

A Collection of

Stories, Reviews and Essays

by

Willa Cather

CONTENTS

PART

I:

STORIES

Peter On the Divide Eric Hermannson’s Soul The Sentimentality of William Tavener The Namesake The Enchanted Bluff The Joy of Nelly Deane The Bohemian Girl Consequences The Bookkeeper’s Wife Ardessa Her Boss

PART

II:

REVIEWS

AND

ESSAYS

Mark Twain William Dean Howells Edgar Allan Poe Walt Whitman Henry James Harold Frederic Kate Chopin Stephen Crane Frank Norris When I Knew Stephen Crane On the Art of Fiction

PART I

STORIES

Peter

“No, Antone, I have told thee many times, no, thou shalt not sell it

until I am gone.”

“But I need money; what good is that old fiddle to thee? The very

crows laugh at thee when thou art trying to play. Thy hand trembles

so thou canst scarce hold the bow. Thou shalt go with me to the Blue

to cut wood to-morrow. See to it thou art up early.”

“What, on the Sabbath, Antone, when it is so cold? I get so very

cold, my son, let us not go to-morrow.”

“Yes, to-morrow, thou lazy old man. Do not I cut wood upon the

Sabbath? Care I how cold it is? Wood thou shalt cut, and haul it

too, and as for the fiddle, I tell thee I will sell it yet.” Antone

pulled his ragged cap down over his low heavy brow, and went out.

The old man drew his stool up nearer the fire, and sat stroking his

violin with trembling fingers and muttering, “Not while I live, not

while I live.”

Five years ago they had come here, Peter Sadelack, and his wife, and

oldest son Antone, and countless smaller Sadelacks, here to the

dreariest part of south-western Nebraska, and had taken up a

homestead. Antone was the acknowledged master of the premises, and

people said he was a likely youth, and would do well. That he was

mean and untrustworthy every one knew, but that made little

difference. His corn was better tended than any in the county, and

his wheat always yielded more than other men’s.

Of Peter no one knew much, nor had any one a good word to say for

him. He drank whenever he could get out of Antone’s sight long

enough to pawn his hat or coat for whiskey. Indeed there were but

two things he would not pawn, his pipe and his violin. He was a

lazy, absent minded old fellow, who liked to fiddle better than to

plow, though Antone surely got work enough out of them all, for that

matter. In the house of which Antone was master there was no one,

from the little boy three years old, to the old man of sixty, who

did not earn his bread. Still people said that Peter was worthless,

and was a great drag on Antone, his son, who never drank, and was a

much better man than his father had ever been. Peter did not care

what people said. He did not like the country, nor the people, least

of all he liked the plowing. He was very homesick for Bohemia. Long

ago, only eight years ago by the calendar, but it seemed eight

centuries to Peter, he had been a second violinist in the great

theatre at Prague. He had gone into the theatre very young, and had

been there all his life, until he had a stroke of paralysis, which

made his arm so weak that his bowing was uncertain. Then they told

him he could go. Those were great days at the theatre. He had plenty

to drink then, and wore a dress coat every evening, and there were

always parties after the play. He could play in those days, ay, that

he could! He could never read the notes well, so he did not play

first; but his touch, he had a touch indeed, so Herr Mikilsdoff, who

led the orchestra, had said. Sometimes now Peter thought he could

plow better if he could only bow as he used to. He had seen all the

lovely women in the world there, all the great singers and the great

players. He was in the orchestra when Rachel played, and he heard

Liszt play when the Countess d’Agoult sat in the stage box and threw

the master white lilies. Once, a French woman came and played for

weeks, he did not remember her name now. He did not remember her

face very well either, for it changed so, it was never twice the

same. But the beauty of it, and the great hunger men felt at the

sight of it, that he remembered. Most of all he remembered her

voice. He did not know French, and could not understand a word she

said, but it seemed to him that she must be talking the music of

Chopin. And her voice, he thought he should know that in the other

world. The last night she played a play in which a man touched her

arm, and she stabbed him. As Peter sat among the smoking gas jets

down below the footlights with his fiddle on his knee, and looked up

at her, he thought he would like to die too, if he could touch her

arm once, and have her stab him so. Peter went home to his wife very

drunk that night. Even in those days he was a foolish fellow, who

cared for nothing but music and pretty faces.

It was all different now. He had nothing to drink and little to eat,

and here, there was nothing but sun, and grass, and sky. He had

forgotten almost everything, but some things he remembered well

enough. He loved his violin and the holy Mary, and above all else he

feared the Evil One, and his son Antone.

The fire was low, and it grew cold. Still Peter sat by the fire

remembering. He dared not throw more cobs on the fire; Antone would

be angry. He did not want to cut wood tomorrow, it would be Sunday,

and he wanted to go to mass. Antone might let him do that. He held

his violin under his wrinkled chin, his white hair fell over it, and

he began to play “Ave Maria.” His hand shook more than ever before,

and at last refused to work the bow at all. He sat stupefied for a

while, then arose, and taking his violin with him, stole out into

the old sod stable. He took Antone’s shot-gun down from its peg, and

loaded it by the moonlight which streamed in through the door. He

sat down on the dirt floor, and leaned back against the dirt wall.

He heard the wolves howling in the distance, and the night wind

screaming as it swept over the snow. Near him he heard the regular

breathing of the horses in the dark. He put his crucifix above his

heart, and folding his hands said brokenly all the Latin he had ever

known, ”Pater noster, qui in caelum est.“ Then he raised his head

and sighed, “Not one kreutzer will Antone pay them to pray for my

soul, not one kreutzer, he is so careful of his money, is Antone, he

does not waste it in drink, he is a better man than I, but hard

sometimes. He works the girls too hard, women were not made to work

so. But he shall not sell thee, my fiddle, I can play thee no more,

but they shall not part us. We have seen it all together, and we