on, "you've never played so well as you played to-day. That's curious."
"Malheureusement," supplemented Paul, with a grim smile. "Good art is a product of suffering."
The old man had retired into his shell. "So well," he insisted, "that I was hoping you'd play a little longer—perhaps something on the piano."
"Volontiers," Paul acquiesced, though he would rather have crept back to his garret.
He opened the piano and let his fingers roam. He was still living in the past. His moral life was unfolding itself before him year by year. Instinctively he began the sonata he had performed on the night when he had first become conscious of having a mission to fulfil. As the first movement played itself he relived the tropical nights at sea, recaptured the smell of tar, the sound of crisp, lapping water and flapping sails, the sight of a moonlight track through the indigo gloom, a track down which he sent passionate invocations towards a radiant future which had become a dreary present.
In the last movement his courage failed him. That triumphant, self-sure theme which he had boldly identified with his own ego—what a travesty! Yet he forced himself to play it, if only as a tribute to the heroic dead—for that eager, credulous boy of thirteen was assuredly dead.
His arms dropped at his sides. He could not have played another bar.
M. de Reisenach came towards him with tears in his eyes. He looked old and harrowed. It was the first time Paul had played the sonata in his house.
"Ah, mon cher ami, if you only knew what the sonata means to me—to us. It was one of my wife's favourites. How many times has she played it for me in the old happy days that ceased long ago—before you were even born!"
