Before the Spring Festival of 1973 the narrator’s mother brought him his violin; it was a fine German model. The narrator received the violin from his great uncle who bought it from a poor Russian musician for fifty silver dollars. His uncle was on his deathbed when he gave the violin to the narrator, and gave it to him because none of his sons our grandsons played the violin. The narrator aspired to be a musician for much of his young life; he attended a music school, but later abandoned the dream.
The narrator is now in a camp for political prisoners, recently one of the prisoners was executed, and many prisoners were scared they were going to be killed. The narrator was made a prisoner of a fellow prisoner named Old Cop, and the narrator could not stand him. Even though he did not like him, the narrator tried to be on good terms with the Old Cop, but he just ignored him. On the eve of the Spring festival the narrator was playing his violin on his bed and a fellow prisoner was trying to hide cakes his wife had brought him. After a while a crowd of inmates were gathered abound his bunk listening to him play the violin.
The Old Cop was annoyed when The Big Boss of the barracks came over to listen to the narrator play so he told the narrator to go outside. As he as going outside to the courtyard he started to recall past spring festivals before he was a prisoner, and how he learned to play the violin. He then entered the bathroom and saw a couple of his friends and started play the violin for them. They were very pleased. Later that night he went to the Big Boss’s barracks, and they talked about the Big Boss’s upcoming release, and how he was arrested.
When the narrator returned to his barracks, he witnessed the Old Cop trying to steal the one of the inmate’s cakes and started to fight with him. He eventually won the fight and was rewarded by one of the officers. He was to be one of the waiters at the festival, a job that the Old Cop would have had. The narrator was excited to receive the job because he would be able to hear rumors from the outside world. When they got to the festival they were to help the butcher slay another pig because there were more people coming than expected.
When they were preparing to slay the pig an officer of considerable rank started discussing butchery with the butcher. Then the butcher did slay the pig, and the narrator was supposed to hold down the body, but it proved to be too much for him and was thrown off the squirming pig. The butcher was angered, and then proceeded to cook the pig all by himself. The narrator was then ordered to bring the meat the butcher was chopping up into the kitchen. In the kitchen he noticed a woman who he had meet at a previous spring festival. They then did the dishes together so they could continue to talk.
When they were finished everyone had left, and one of the officers brought the inmates a bottle of wine with their supper and told them that no one was to get drunk. The butcher ended up getting drunk, so the narrator was ordered to tie him up and hang him where the pig was hung earlier in the day. The narrator was told not to let him down until five o’clock. When he finally let him down, he went to the main hall to watch a movie and met the woman who had worked in the kitchen. They held hands for much of the movie, and then he headed back to his barracks and distributed leftover among his fellow inmates, and went to bed.
