"Tolstoy, Leo - Albert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tolstoy Leo)

After that first note the theme flowed freely and elegantly, suddenly
illumining the inner world of every listener with an unexpectedly clear and
tranquillizing light. Not one false or exaggerated sound impaired the
acquiescence of the listeners: the notes were all clear, elegant, and
significant. Everyone silently followed their development with tremulous
expectation. From the state of dullness, noisy distraction and mental
torpor in which they had been, these people were suddenly and imperceptibly
carried into another quite different world that they had forgotten. Now a
calm contemplation of the past arose in their souls, now an impassioned
memory of some past happiness, now a boundless desire for power and
splendour, now a feeling of resignation, of unsatisfied love and sadness.
Sounds now tenderly sad, now vehemently despairing, mingled freely, flowing
and flowing one after the other so elegantly, so strongly, and so
unconsciously, that the sounds themselves were not noticed, but there
flowed of itself into the soul a beautiful torrent of poetry, long familiar
but only now expressed. At each note Albert grew taller and taller. He was
far from appearing misshapen or strange. Pressing the violin with his chin
and listening to his notes with an expression of passionate attention, he
convulsively moved his feet. Now he straightened himself to his full
height, now he strenuously bent his back. His left arm seemed to have
become set in the bent position to which he had strained it and only the
bony fingers moved convulsively: the right arm moved smoothly, elegantly,
and almost imperceptibly. His face shone with uninterrupted, ecstatic joy;
his eyes burnt with a bright, dry brilliance, his nostrils expanded, his
red lips opened with delight.

Sometimes his head bent closer to the violin, his eyes closed, and his
face, half covered by his hair, lit up with a smile of mild rapture.
Sometimes he drew himself up rapidly, advancing one foot, and his clear
brow and the beaming look he cast round the room gleamed with pride,
dignity, and a consciousness of power. Once the pianist blundered and
struck a wrong chord. Physical suffering was apparent in the whole face and
figure of the musician. He paused for an instant and stamping his foot with
an expression of childish anger, cried: "Moll, ce moll!" The Pianist
recovered himself. Albert closed his eyes, smiled, and again forgetting
himself, the others, and the whole world, gave himself up rapturously to
his task.

All who were in the room preserved a submissive silence while Albert was
playing, and seemed to live and breathe only in his music.

The merry officer sat motionless on a chair by a window, directing a
lifeless gaze upon the floor and breathing slowly and heavily. The girls
sat in complete silence along the walls, and only occasionally threw
approving and bewildered glances at one another. The hostess's fat smiling
face expanded with pleasure. The pianist riveted his eyes on Albert's face
and, with a fear of blundering which expressed itself in his whole taut
figure, tried to keep up with him. One of the visitors who had drunk more
than the others lay prone on the sofa, trying not to move for fear of