exhibited a certain aloofness of character, and as he grew older this
trait became intensified; the riddle of his life had forced itself upon
him, and he vainly wrestled with it. Music drew him as iron filings to
the magnet, or as the tentacles of an octopus carry to its parrot-shaped
beak its victim. It was monstrous, he abhorred it, but could no more
resist it than the hasheesh eater his drug.

So in the fury of despair, and with a certain self-contempt, he strove
desperately to master the technical problems of his art. He found an
abettor in the person of the Portuguese pianist, to whom he laid bare
his soul. He studied every night, and since he need no longer conceal
his secret, he began practising at home....

Racah made his debut when he was twenty-one years old. The friend of the
family nearly burst a blood-vessel at the concert, so enthusiastic was
he over the son of his old crony. Racah's father stayed home and refused
comfort. His son was a pianist and not a priest. "He has disgraced
himself and God will not reply to his call for aid," and he placed his
hands over his thin eyebrows and wept. Racah's mother spoke: "Take on
courage; the boy plays badly--there is yet hope."

The good man, elated by the idea, went forth to play dominoes with his
old crony at the inn where the two yellow cats quarrel on the dingy sign
over the door....

Racah sat at his piano. His usually smooth, high forehead, with its mop
of heavy black curls, was corrugated with little puckering lines. His
mouth was drawn at the corners, and from time to time he sighed; great
groans, too, burst forth from him. But he played, played furiously, and
he smote the keyboard as if he hated it. He was playing the B minor
Sonata of Chopin, with its melting second movement--so moving that it
could melt the heart of the right sort of a stone. Yet this lovely
cantilena extorted anger from the young pianist. It was true that he
played badly, but not so badly as his mother imagined. His very hatred
of music reverberated in his playing and produced an odd, inverted,
temperamental spark. The transposition of an emotion into a lower or
higher key may change its external expression; its intensity is not
thereby altered. Racah hated the piano, hated Chopin, hated music; yet
potentially Racah was a great pianist....

The years fugued by. Racah gradually became known as an artist of
strange power. He had studied with Liszt, although he was not a favorite
of the