But if M'sieu' intends to take the next
train for Bordeaux it is as well that he should be starting."
III
The Lost Stradivarius
In the year 1885 Jean Bott, a native of Hesse Cassel, Germany, emigrated
with his wife Matilda to this country, bringing with him a celebrated
violin known as "The Duke of Cambridge Stradivarius," which he had
purchased in 1873 for about three thousand thalers--a sum representing
practically the savings of a lifetime. Bott had been leader of a small
orchestra in Saxe Meiningen as early as 1860, and was well advanced in
years before he determined to seek his fortune in America. His wife was
an elderly woman and they had no offspring.
"This violin, my husband and myself made up the family--I loved it like
a child," she testified at the trial.
So also did Bott, the old musician, love his instrument, and no hand but
his own was ever permitted to lift it from its case or dust its
darkly-glowing surface.
Whatever may have been its owner's genius, he prospered little in the
new world, and, although he labored conscientiously at his profession,
the year 1894 found him still giving lessons upon the violin to only
half a dozen pupils, and living in two rooms at 355 West Thirty-first
Street.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82