The Piano Maker Read Online Free PDF Page B

eighty-eight keys. Many more hammers touch strings in threes and twos than in singles. So the question is, to what degreeshould the side strings resonate differently from the main? You see, that is the art in the craft. The human ear wants to hear not just one isolated note at a time. It wants soft edges, a touch of polyphony. And it does not want to just
hear
that note, Mademoiselle. It wants to
feel
it.”
    She was ten years old then. She’d been taking piano at the conservatory since the age of six, and now began her formal apprenticeship in the serious business of piano making.
    Monsieur Bendix Raoul, because she liked and trusted him, had also been the one finally able to convince her that a dog on the factory grounds was not a good idea. Her mother had been saying that all along and there had been fights and tears over it, but when Bendix Raoul eventually talked to her about it, she came around. It helped that he made her see it from the dog’s point of view.
    “Mademoiselle,” he said to her, “a dog can be an affectionate and loyal companion, I grant you that. But you won’t always be there to watch out for it.”
    “Why not? I would be very responsible.”
    “I’m sure you would be. But what about when you are at school, for instance? Or in the house, and the dog is out here? And how would you feel if some injury were to happen to the dog? This is a factory.”
    “I would train it. Dogs are intelligent.”
    “Yes. Some are. But I once knew a dog at a factory down south and it got caught in the master belt from the millshaft, Mademoiselle. That’s the widest belt on the floor and it’s often loose like ours is, and that dog got caught in it and the belt carried it into the cogs and right around and up through the idler. It was terrible, Mademoiselle. All the fur and skin was torn off and when they finally got to it—”
    She covered her ears and told him to stop. “Is that true?” she said.
    He nodded. “It was terrible.”
    “I could have a long leash and tie it up when I’m not here.”
    “Yes, you could do that. But think about it. Imagine you are the dog, and how would you like being tied up for hours? And all the noise and goings-on around you. The saws and routers and the trucks coming and going.”
    This conversation took place under a grand piano, when they both were on hands and knees so that he could point out to her the principles of soundboard anchoring and the subtle thinning and widening of the frame.
    He said, “Maybe take your time and think about it, Mademoiselle. Look around at all the dangers here on the floors and in the yard. For the men too, when they’re carrying cabinet pieces. But think of the dog, mostly.”
    She did think about it, and eventually there was no more talk of a dog.

Six
    NATHAN HOMEWOOD came more than ten years later, and the way her entanglement and her problems with him began was strange and quick and wholly unexpected.
    The Boston order had essentially saved the company and, as a result, Nathan became a frequent visitor and dinner guest at the house. On the third such evening he brought twenty long-stemmed roses, and he grinned with his usual confidence and handed them to her.
    Mother and Juliette exchanged glances but made no comment. By the end of that dinner they were treating him like a family friend. They called him
Monsieur Ohm-bois
, and he enjoyed that. Her, he called Miss Helen, and then just Helen. He said the first-name basis was the American way and that the proper pronunciation of those accented vowels defeated him.
    He told them his family had been Americans who’d moved north to Canada, and then some had gone back. His parents had moved to New Mexico for the climate,and he was now dividing his time between England and the Continent and North America, always on the lookout for new business opportunities.
    Before long it became her task after those visits to see him out, to turn on the lights on the stairway and to walk down with him and