The Rainaldi Quartet Read Online Free PDF

both teenagers, I’d kissed her under the arcade in the Piazza Roma. Yet now, in her hour of greatest need, I could do nothing to help her.
    *   *   *
    â€˜So tell me, Gianni,’ Guastafeste said.
    We were at a bar around the corner from Rainaldi’s house, sitting out on the pavement under an awning. Guastafeste spooned sugar into his cup of coffee and stirred it for far longer than was necessary to dissolve it.
    â€˜You should go home and get some sleep,’ I said.
    â€˜This violin, this Messiah’s Sister, it means something to you, doesn’t it? I didn’t like to ask you at Clara’s.’
    Guastafeste has two attributes that make him a particularly good policeman – and friend: he’s observant, and he knows when to hold his peace. As a child he was always watching. He used to come to my workshop after school and sit quietly in a corner watching me at my bench; not saying much, just following my hands, absorbing the atmosphere, the smell of glue and pine. I thought at first that he came because he was interested in violin-making. Later I realised it was because he had no one at home.
    â€˜There’s a violin called the Messiah,’ I replied. ‘It’s usually known by its French name, Le Messie. ’
    â€˜It’s a famous violin?’ Guastafeste asked.
    â€˜The most famous – and the most valuable – on earth.’
    Every profession has its myths, its folklore, tales from the past which somehow encapsulate the mystique of the calling, casting an aura of romance over a job which for the most part may be rather dull and monotonous. We all need these myths, to entertain, to embroider the labours we have chosen to fill our working days, for without them life would be intolerable.
    The fine arts world is particularly prone, and particularly conducive, to myth-making. A cynic would say it helps keep prices high. Art dealers will talk of a missing Raphael, a Van Gogh that turns up gathering dust in the attic of some eccentric old lady. Musicologists will talk of an undiscovered Schubert symphony, a long-lost Mozart score that is spectacularly unearthed in the library of some obscure collector. And violin-makers tell the story of ‘Le Messie’, the perfect, unplayed, priceless Stradivari.
    â€˜I’ve never heard of it,’ Guastafeste said.
    â€˜You should have,’ I said. ‘It’s a work of art to rank alongside the Mona Lisa, the Divine Comedy, the operas of Verdi. It’s a masterpiece as great as anything Michelangelo produced, as profound as a Beethoven symphony, as sublime and universal as a Shakespeare tragedy. To me, it is one of the most beautiful objects ever created by man. Think of jewels, think of a thousand glittering cut diamonds. Think of paintings, a Van Dyck portrait, a Monet landscape. They are nothing. This violin is more beautiful than any of them. Because it is not just for looking at. It is aesthetically beautiful, but it also has a purpose. It creates a sound, a music more heavenly, more inspiring than every jewel, every painting, every poem in history put together.’
    Guastafeste stared at me. He is accustomed to my emotional outbursts, but even so my passion seemed to take him by surprise.
    â€˜This is some violin,’ he said.
    â€˜Oh, it is.’
    â€˜You’ve seen it?’
    â€˜Yes, I’ve seen it.’
    â€˜Heard it played?’
    â€˜No. No man alive has heard it.’
    Guastafeste kept his eyes fixed on me. ‘I’m waiting,’ he said.
    I paused a moment, to let the throbbing in my head subside, to bring my emotions back under control.
    â€˜You want the story from the beginning?’ I said. ‘We have to go back to the year 1716. Antonio Stradivari was at the height of his powers, three-quarters of the way through what we now call his “Golden Period”. In that year he made a violin which, even by his demanding standards, was