Pupils contract symmetrically to a diameter of about a tenth part of an inch, noted Stephen on a corner of a page. There was a loud, decided crack, a melancholy confused twanging, and with a ludicrous expression of doubt and wonder and distress, Jack held out his violin, all dislocated and unnatural with its broken neck. ‘It snapped,’ he cried. ‘It snapped.’ He fitted the broken ends together with infinite care and held them in place. ‘I would not have had it happen for the world,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have known this fiddle, man and boy, since I was breeched.’
This is so damned heartbreaking. This is Jack’s lowest ebb in the book.
It is a horrible horrible feeling to break a musical instrument. He has had one of the portals to his emotional life taken away
