The
suppression of human speech, so far from letting fancy reign there
uncontrolled (as one might have thought), had eliminated it altogether.
Never was spoken language of such inflexible necessity, never had it known
questions so pertinent, such obvious replies. At first the piano
complained alone, like a bird deserted by its mate; the violin heard and
answered it, as from a neighbouring tree. It was as at the first beginning
of the world, as if there were not yet but these twain upon the earth, or
rather in this world closed against all the rest, so fashioned by the
logic of its creator that in it there should never be any but themselves;
the world of this sonata. Was it a bird, was it the soul, not yet made
perfect, of the little phrase, was it a fairy, invisibly somewhere
lamenting, whose plaint the piano heard and tenderly repeated? Its cries
were so sudden that the violinist must snatch up his bow and race to catch
them as they came. Marvellous bird! The violinist seemed to wish to charm,
to tame, to woo, to win it. Already it had passed into his soul, already
the little phrase which it evoked shook like a medium's the body of the
violinist, 'possessed' indeed.
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