- description
- # The Fiddle Performance and Revelation
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This is a subsection of text extracted from the file [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY), part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The text was extracted on January 30, 2026, by the structure-extraction-lambda. It is labeled "The Fiddle Performance and Revelation" and spans lines 7161-7220 of the source file.
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This subsection is contained within the section labeled "THE FIDDLER" ([arke:01KG8AKG134XQNJQR2GMS7CJ2F]). It follows the subsection "Hautboy's Return and Invitation" ([arke:01KG8AKZPXT19V17JS6MRQ23R9]) and precedes "Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take regular lessons of Hautboy." ([arke:01KG8AKZPXF0P6ZK02F8C1SX3D]). The text is part of a larger work, "billy_budd.txt," which is included in the Melville Complete Works collection.
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The subsection describes a scene where a character named Hautboy plays the fiddle. The narrator is captivated by Hautboy's musical performance, despite the simple tune. Standard, another character, remarks on Hautboy's skill and alludes to a past of fame and glory. The narrator then questions Standard about Hautboy's identity, leading to a discussion of Hautboy's past triumphs and current obscurity. The narrator reveals that he once applauded Hautboy's name in a theater. The section concludes with the narrator's resolve to learn from Hautboy.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:49:34.741Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- The Fiddle Performance and Revelation
- end_line
- 7220
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:22.050Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7161
- text
- 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?’
- title
- The Fiddle Performance and Revelation