g
there, with his fingers at his neck, he was pierced by a sudden lucid
perception of what had happened. An intolerable spasm of remembrance
gripped him. With a rush of bitterness, which was undiluted agony, all
the shame and suffering of the past months swept over him once more,
concentrated in a last supreme moment. And, as though this were not
enough, while he still wrenched at his neck, tearing his shirt-collar
in his desperation, her face rose before him--but not the face he had
known and loved. He saw it as he had seen it for the last time,
disfigured by hatred of him, horribly vindictive, as it had been when
she spat on the ground at his feet. This vision gave him an
unlooked-for jerk of courage. Without allowing himself another second
in which to reason or reflect, he caught up the revolver from the seat,
and pressed the cold little nozzle to his chest. Simultaneously he
received a sharp blow, and heard the crack of a report--but far away
... in the distance. He was on his back, without knowing how he had got
there; straight overhead waved the bare branches of a tree; behind
them, a grey morning cloud was sailing. For still the fraction of a
second, he heard the familiar melody, to which the soldiers marched;
and the branch swayed ... swayed ...

Then, as suddenly as the flame of a candle is puffed out by the wind,
his life went from him. His right hand twitched, made as if to open,
closed again, and stiffened round the iron of the handle. His jaw fell,
and, like an inner lid, a glazed film rose over his eyes, which for
hours afterwards continued to stare, with an expression of horror and
amaze, at the naked branches of the tree.

* * * * *

One midday, a couple of years later, a number of those who had formed
the audience at one of the last rehearsals of the season, were gathered
round the back entrance to the Gewandhaus. It was a fresh spring day,
gusty and sunny by turns: sometimes, there came a puff of wind that
drove every one's hand to his hat; at others, the broad square basked
in an almost motionless sunshine. The small crowd lingered in order to
see, at close quarters, the violinist who had played there that
morning. Only a few of those present had known Schilsky personally; but
one and all were curious to catch a glimpse of the quondam Leipzig
student, who, it was whispered, would soon return to the town to take
up a leading position in the orchestra. Schilsky was now KONZERTMEISTER
in a large