Traveler of the Century by Andrés Neuman Read Free Book Online Page A

wonderful.
    In the drawing room, Elsa had begun lighting the candles and Bertold was attending to the fire. Smoke emanating from his
pipe and whiskers, Herr Gottlieb looked out of the windows, pensive. A likeable young man, he concluded. Bah, Sophie murmured clutching her fan tightly.
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    Look who’s here, Franz! cried the organ grinder when he saw Hans’s sleepy head peering inside the cave. Franz ran up to him and hung on his jacket. We were beginning to miss you, the organ grinder admitted. Hunched over the open lid of his instrument, spanner in hand, the old man was checking its interior. Spread out on a newspaper were two cylinders studded with pins, some coiled strings, and a shoebox full of tools. Hans went closer to the organ. At first it looked as if the pins were scattered like tiny insects over the barrels, but on closer inspection he saw they were placed with great precision. He saw the hammers at rest, the lines of three screws to which the strings were fastened.
    These pins here, the organ grinder began explaining, turn with the handle and push up the hammers. There are thirty-four hammers in all, and they strike the strings. The low notes are on the left of the barrel, the high notes on the right. Each pin is a note, and each cluster of pins is a tune. You put a tune on the cylinder by punching holes in these parchments, you see, then stretching them round the barrel and banging the pins into the holes. But here’s the secret—the pins vary slightly in length and width, making the notes longer or shorter, enhancing or muting them. Each pin is a mystery. Not a note exactly, the promise of a note. The strings wear out, naturally, and sometimes one of them needs replacing. That’s a real problem because they are expensive. I buy them second-hand from Herr Ricordi at the music shop. I knock on the door and give him whatever I have in my dish. The strings have to be tightened with this device here, you see? Yesterday I was playing a pavane and,
oh! the B-flats were terrible.
    How many tunes are there on each barrel? asked Hans. That depends, replied the organ grinder, these aren’t very big, eight apiece. I change them from time to time, or depending on who’s listening—no one wants slow tunes in summer, people like lively dances. Now that it’s winter on the other hand, people feel more introspective and are glad to hear classical tunes, especially when it rains. Don’t ask me why, but people prefer slow music when it rains, and they are generous (is what they give you enough to live on? Hans wanted to know), well, we manage, I live frugally, and Franz doesn’t need much either. Sometimes I get asked to play at a dance if people can’t afford an orchestra. Saturdays are good days because people give a lot of parties (what about Sundays? said Hans), Sundays it depends, if people leave church feeling repentant, they leave me something. People are more generous when they feel guilty. In any case, I don’t let it worry me too much, I enjoy playing, I enjoy being in the square, especially in spring. I hope you’ll be here to see spring in Wandernburg.
    When the organ grinder had finished tuning the strings and closed the lid, Hans could not help caressing the handle. May I? he asked. Of course, the old man smiled, only be careful, you have to turn the handle as if, I don’t know, as if someone were turning you, no, not so fast, relax your arm, that’s better, now let’s choose a tune, shall we? You see this small handle here? To change tunes you have to push it in slightly or pull it out, oh dear! Let go, I’ll do it. What do you prefer, a polonaise, a minuet? A minuet is better, it’s easier to follow the rhythm, go ahead, stop! Not that way, Hans, you’ll break it, you have to turn it clockwise! Slowly, let’s see?
    Hans was surprised by how easy and at the same time awkward it was to play the barrel organ. Sometimes the handle