The Lifted Bandage
The man let himself into his front door and, staggering lightly, like a drunken man, as he closed it, walked to the hall table, and mechanically laid down his hat, but still wearing his overcoat turned and went into his library, and dropped on the edge of a divan and stared out through the leaded panes of glass across the room facing him. The grayish skin of his face seemed to fall in diagonal furrows, from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth. He sat, still to his finger-tips, staring. He was sitting so when a servant slipped in and stood motionless a minute, and went to the wide window where the west light glared through leafless branches outside, and drew the shades lower, and went to the fireplace and touched a match. Wood caught and crackled and a cheerful orange flame flew noisily up the chimney, but the man sitting on the divan did not notice. The butler waited a moment, watching, hesitating, and then: "Have you had lunch, sir?" he asked in a tentative, gentle voice. The staring eyes moved with an effort and rested on the servant's face. "Lunch?" he repeated, apparently trying to focus on the meaning of the word. "Lunch? I don't know, Miller. But don't bring anything."
conversation. "As he looks through the C-minor symphony by Beethoven,
a musician is transported to the world of fancy on the golden wings of
the subject in G-natural repeated by the horns in E. He sees a whole
realm, by turns glorious in dazzling shafts of light, gloomy under
clouds of melancholy, and cheered by heavenly strains."
"The new school has left Beethoven far behind," said the
ballad-writer, scornfully.
"Beethoven is not yet understood," said the Count. "How can he be
excelled?"
Gambara drank a large glass of champagne, accompanying the draught by
a covert smile of approval.
"Beethoven," the Count went on, "extended the limits of instrumental
music, and no one followed in his track."
Gambara assented with a nod.
"His work is especially noteworthy for simplicity of construction and
for the way the scheme is worked out," the Count went on. "Most
composers make use of the orchestral parts in a vague, incoherent way,
combining them for a merely temporary effect; they do not persistently
contribute to the whole mass of the movement by their steady and
regular progress. Beethoven assigns its part to each tone-quality from
The man let himself into his front door and, staggering lightly, like a drunken man, as he closed it, walked to the hall table, and mechanically laid down his hat, but still wearing his overcoat turned and went into his library, and dropped on the edge of a divan and stared out through the leaded panes of glass across the room facing him. The grayish skin of his face seemed to fall in diagonal furrows, from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth. He sat, still to his finger-tips, staring. He was sitting so when a servant slipped in and stood motionless a minute, and went to the wide window where the west light glared through leafless branches outside, and drew the shades lower, and went to the fireplace and touched a match. Wood caught and crackled and a cheerful orange flame flew noisily up the chimney, but the man sitting on the divan did not notice. The butler waited a moment, watching, hesitating, and then: "Have you had lunch, sir?" he asked in a tentative, gentle voice. The staring eyes moved with an effort and rested on the servant's face. "Lunch?" he repeated, apparently trying to focus on the meaning of the word. "Lunch? I don't know, Miller. But don't bring anything."