I am so sorry,' she said. 'I will try to do better now.' Alas for the word. The adagio called for subtle phrasing, and it called in vain: she cast him several apologetic looks until a particularly wild aberration made him pause, his bow in the air, when she laid her hands in her lap and said 'Shall we go back to the beginning?' 'By all means,' said Stephen. But it was not a successful experiment: between them they slowly murdered poor Contarini, Maturin now playing as badly as his partner, and when his A string broke with a solemn twang two thirds of the way through the adagio there was a general feeling of relief.