—was a violation of all verisimilitude. Aunt Verona was merely the memory of a woman who had been seen through the magical lens by himself and a few choice spirits, while the cities which had been her glorious setting were memories even less tangible.
Munich, in short, and Vienna—to which he repaired—were dead, just as Aunt Verona was dead. Surrounded by students of divers nationalities, listening to subsidized performances, giving heed to masters who upheld the traditions of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler, he was as far from the fabulous soirées as he had been at the age of twelve—even farther, for he had lost the faith in their fabulousness which had inspired his boyhood. Another bitter drop in the cup was a guess that the poor old composer had been in the same leaky, romantic boat.
True, viewed as a mere example of reality, Vienna, like Munich, presented historical and artistic splendours. But these partook of the nature of shells. Again it was a question of his unbridled hopes. Music, he had persuaded himself, was a medium for the conveying of ineffable messages, a universal language designed to bring balm to the hearts of a humanity befuddled by words. Yet in Vienna, this most eclectic of shrines, where renowned masters and brilliant pupils foregathered, his notions were regarded as hallucinations, albeit of an amiable faddist whom it was easy enough to humour. The naïve wisdom of Mr. Silva counted for nothing among men who knew all there was to know on the subject of music. After Paul had aired his views the conversation fell back on an exchange of personalities. There was praise for so-and-so's manner of "rendering" a certain fugue; condemnation for so-and-so's "interpreting" of a certain étude; but no apparent comprehension of the spiritual influence exercised by Bach and Chopin. Certain factions maintained that the fingers
