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
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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