Visit to Hautboy's rooms, his fiddling, and the revelation of his past

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description

# Visit to Hautboy's rooms, his fiddling, and the revelation of his past ## Overview This scene is an extracted segment from the text file [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR), part of the [Test Collection](arke:01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H). It is located within the section titled "THE FIDDLER" [THE FIDDLER](arke:01KG6GKYHVPHA523Q2YWBT2YDA). The scene depicts a visit to Hautboy's rooms, his fiddling, and the revelation of his past. ## Context The scene is preceded by [Continued discussion between Helmstone and Standard, Hautboy's return](arke:01KG6GMC0GRZTX5AQATS5NDBD1), where Helmstone and Standard discuss Hautboy's character and potential. This scene is one of several scenes contained within the "THE FIDDLER" section of the text. ## Contents The scene describes Helmstone and Standard visiting Hautboy's apartment, which is located in a storehouse and furnished with odd pieces from auctions. Hautboy plays the fiddle, captivating Helmstone and dispelling his discontent. Standard reveals that Hautboy was once a famous prodigy, whose name Helmstone recognized from his childhood. The scene concludes with Helmstone deciding to take fiddle lessons from Hautboy, inspired by this revelation.

description_generated_at

2026-01-30T03:55:58.882Z

description_model

gemini-2.5-flash-lite

description_title

Visit to Hautboy's rooms, his fiddling, and the revelation of his past

end_line

7228

extracted_at

2026-01-30T03:54:57.271Z

extracted_by

structure-extraction-lambda

source_file

01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR

start_line

7142

text

‘I was behind time with my engagement,’ said Hautboy, ‘so thought I would run back and rejoin you. But come, you have sat long enough here. Let us go to my rooms. It is only a five-minutes’ walk.’ ‘If you will promise to fiddle for us, we will,’ said Standard. Fiddle! thought I--he’s a jigembob _fiddler_, then? No wonder genius declines to measure its pace to a fiddler’s bow. My spleen was very strong on me now. ‘I will gladly fiddle you your fill,’ replied Hautboy to Standard. ‘Come on.’ In a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of storehouse, in a lateral street to Broadway. It was curiously furnished with all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained, piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. But all was charmingly clean and cosy. Pressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle, and sitting down on a tall, rickety stool, played away right merrily at ‘Yankee Doodle’ and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully care-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I was transfixed by something miraculously superior in the style. Sitting there on the old stool, his rusty hat sideways cocked on his head, one foot dangling adrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. All my moody discontent, every vestige of peevishness fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated to the magical fiddle. ‘Something of an Orpheus, ah?’ said Standard, archly nudging me beneath the left rib. ‘And I, the charmed Bruin,’ murmured I. The fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon the easy, indifferent Hautboy. But he entirely baffled inquisition. When, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I earnestly conjured him to tell me who, in sober truth, this marvellous Hautboy was. ‘Why, haven’t you seen him? And didn’t you yourself lay his whole anatomy open on the marble slab at Taylor’s. What more can you possibly learn? Doubtless your own masterly insight has already put you in possession of all.’ ‘You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat you, who is Hautboy?’ ‘An extraordinary genius, Helmstone,’ said Standard, with sudden ardour, ‘who in boyhood drained the whole flagon of glory; whose going from city to city was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been an object of wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, received the open homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. But to-day he walks Broadway and no man knows him. With you and me, the elbow of the hurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. He who has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now wears, as you see, a bunged beaver. Once fortune poured showers of gold into his lap, as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, from house to house he hies, teaching fiddling for a living. Crammed once with fame, he is now hilarious without it. _With_ genius and _without_ fame, he is happier than a king. More a prodigy now than ever.’ ‘His true name?’ ‘Let me whisper it in your ear.’ ‘What! Oh, Standard, myself, as a child, have shouted myself hoarse applauding that very name in the theatre.’ ‘I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received,’ said Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject. ‘Not a word of that, for Heaven’s sake!’ cried I. ‘If Cicero, travelling in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?’ Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take regular lessons of Hautboy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

title

Visit to Hautboy's rooms, his fiddling, and the revelation of his past