I just finished reading Elie Wiesel's book, "Night". His book left me in a state of silence. Many parts of his journey surviving a German concentration camp had a deep and profound imprint on me. This moment in particular:
"Father, are you there?" I asked as soon as I was able to utter a word."
"I knew that he could not be far from me."
"Yes!" a voice replied from far away, as if from another world. "I am trying to sleep."
"He was trying to sleep. Could one fall asleep here? Wasn't it dangerous to lower ones guard, even for moment, when death could strike at any time?"
"Those were my thoughts when I heard the sound of a violin. A violin in a dark barrack where the dead were piled on top of the living? Who was this madman who played the violin here, at the edge of his own grave? Or was it a hallucination?"
"It had to be Juliek."
"He was playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto. Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound. In such silence."
"The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again."
"I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men."
"I don't know how long he played. I was overcome by sleep. When I awoke at daybreak, I saw Juliek facing me, hunched over, dead. Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse."