s and grape
pickers. The pause appealed to her as a man who climbs naked from a deep
subterranean shaft, carrying a burning torch in his hand; the trill
seemed like a bird that anxiously flutters about its nest.

All of Daniel's compositions came close to her heart; all his pictures
were highly coloured; his figures seemed to be full of blood. If they
remained dead and distant, her sympathy vanished; her face became tired
and empty. Without having spoken a word with each other, Daniel would
know that he was on the wrong track. But all this bound him to the young
woman with hoops of steel; he came to regard her as the creature given
him of God to act as his living conscience and infallible if mute judge.

He hated her when her feelings remained unmoved. If he at last came to
see, after much introspection, that she was right, then he would have
liked to fall down and worship the unknown power that was so inexorable
in pointing him the way.

Spindler had a beautiful harp which he had bequeathed to Daniel in his
will. It had remained in Ansbach in the possession of the old lady who
kept house for him. Daniel had forgotten all about the harp. After his
marriage he had it sent to him.

He kept it in the living room; Gertrude was fond of looking at it. It
enticed her. One day she sat down and tried to draw tones from its
strings. She touched the strings very gently, and was charmed with the
melody that came from them. Gradually she learned the secret; she
discovered the law. An innate talent made the instrument submissive to
her; she was able to express on it all the longings and emotions she had
experienced in her dark and lonely hours.

She generally played very softly; she never tried intricate melodies,
for the harp was adapted to the expression of simple, dream-like
harmonies. The tones were wafted out into the hall and up the stairs;
they greeted Daniel as he entered the old house.

When he came into the room, Gertrude was sitting in a corner by the
stove, the harp between her knees. She smiled mysteriously to herself;
her hands, like strange beings loosed from her body, sought chords and
melodies that were his, and which she was trying to translate to her own
world of dreams.

VI

Her command of language was more defective now than ever. She was seized
with painful astonishment when she noticed that in matters of daily
intercourse Daniel's mind was not able to penetrate the v