He went back to its
mouth, began at one end of the keyboard and felt his way down into the
mellow thunder, as far as he could go. He seemed to know that it must be
done with the fingers, not with the fists or the feet. He approached this
highly artificial instrument 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.
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