" He tucked the fiddle under his chin, tightening his mouth and raising his head as he did so: and the tightening of his mouth was enough to release a flood of emotion. His face reddened, his breath heaved deep, his eyes grew larger and, because of the extreme contraction of their pupils, bluer: his mouth tightened still further, and with it his right hand. 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. "
― Patrick O'Brian , Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin #1)