through a mere instinct, and coupled himself
to it, as if he knew it was to piece him out and
make a whole creature of him. After he had
tried over all the sounds, he began to finger
out passages from things Miss Nellie had been
practicing, passages that were already his, that
lay under the bones of his pinched, conical
little skull, definite as animal desires. The door
opened; Miss Nellie and her music-master
stood behind it, but blind Samson, who was
so sensitive to presences, did not know they
were there. He was feeling out the pattern
that lay all ready-made on the big and little
keys. When he paused for a moment, because
the sound was wrong and he wanted another,
Miss Nellie spoke softly. He whirled about in
a spasm of terror, leaped forward in the dark,
struck his head on the open window, and fell
screaming and bleeding to the floor. He had
what his mother called a fit. The doctor came
and gave him opium.

When Samson was well again, his young
mistress led him back to the piano. Several
teachers experimented with him. They found
he had absolute pitch, and a remarkable
memory. As a very young child he could re-
peat, after a fashion, any composition that

[[214]]

p213 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p214w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p215

v?