"Nein, I know not." His voice trembled.

"There is so much, and it is nothing," said the girl dreamily. She moved
a step toward the piano, his hands locked fast in hers. "Tell me again
you love me!" she whispered.

He took off the great spectacles, and laid them beside the scrawled
page.

"Look in my eyes," he said gently. A kind of grandeur had touched the
homely features. The soul behind them looked out.

She bent toward him. A little sob broke from her lips. She lifted the
hands and moved them swiftly toward the keys.

"Tell me!" she said.

With a smile of sadness, he obeyed the gesture.

Melody filled the room. It flooded the moonlight. The count, pacing back
and forth, halted, a look of bewilderment in his face. He stepped
swiftly toward the door.

The lights on the piano flared uncertainly. They fell on the figure at
the piano. It loomed grotesque and grim, and melted away in flickering
shadow. Music played about it. Strains of sadness swept over it in the
gloom and drifted by, and the sweet, high notes rose clear. A little
distance away the figure of the young countess stood in the shifting
light. Her clasped hands hung before her. She swayed and lifted them,
groping, and turned. Her father sprang to her. Side by side they passed
into the night. The music sounded about them far and sweet.

* * * * *

Franz Schubert, with his youth and his wreaths of fame, his homely face
and soul of fire, is dead these many years; but the soul of fire is not
dead.... The Countess Esterhazy, framed for love, is dust and ashes in
her marble house. The night music plays over her tomb.

The night music plays wherever night is.

FREDERIC CHOPIN--A RECORD

PARIS, October 6, 1837.

It has rained all day. No one has been in. No fantasies have crept to my
soul. Nothing to break the ceaseless, monotonous drip, drip, drip on my
heart. No one but a _garcon_ from the florist's bringing violets--the
great swelling bunch of English violets--Jane Stirling's violets!
Heavens, what a woman! I am like her now, in the little mirror on my
desk. Merely thinking of her has made me so! The great aquiline
nose--the shrewd, canny Scotch look--and the big mouth--alas, that
mouth! When it smiles I am enraged. Oh, Jane! Why dost thou haunt me,
night and day, with thy devotion and thy violets--and thy nose! Let
women be gentle, with soft glances that thrill--soft, dark flames.
Constantia's glance?