st of it all. It is
a voluminous apprehension, a towering impendency. You don't
understand, George. You can't. The poor devil in Poe's 'Pit and the
Pendulum' must have had a taste of my sensations. A first victim is
being chosen. I have a vision of the spirits of composers small and
great--standing up like suspects awaiting identification, while her eye
ranges over them. Chopin tries to edge behind Wagner, a difficult and
forbidding person, and Gounod seeks eclipse of Mendelssohn, who
suddenly drops and crawls on all fours between Gounod's legs; Sullivan
cowers, and even Piccolomini's iron-framed nerves desert him. She
extends her hand. There is a frantic rush to escape. Have you ever
seen a little boy picking dormice out of a cage? I always see this
same nightmare during that dreadful pause, a vision of a writhing heap
of kicking, struggling, maddened composers, and of a ghoulish piano
grinning expectant, jaw raised--lid I mean--and showing all its black
and yellow keys. ... A melancholy shriek. Do you hear, George? Tito
Mattel is captured. A song.

"'Pum--So long the way--Pum--so dark the day--Pum--DEAR HEART! before
you come.' So Tito Mattel comes pumming through the wall into my
presence. I don't pity him. Indeed it is a positive relief that it is
only Tito Mattel. The man's no deity at the best, and a little pulling
out, and pulling crooked, and general patching together of limbs in the
wrong place scarcely matters so far as he and my taste are concerned.
Yet I always leave my work, George, when that begins, and walk about
the room. I try to persuade myself that I need fresh air, but the
autumnal day, the damp shiny street, has all the uninviting harshness
of truth--I admit I do not. Tito flops about, is riddled with dropped
notes and racked with hesitations, and presently becomes still. The
murder is over.

"What next? That Study of Chopin's! This time the thing is more
inspiring. Once upon a time it was a favourite of mine. Now it is a
favourite of the unseen lady's. She plays it with spirit, and conjures
up strange fancies in my brain. The noises that come through the wall
now, quicker, thicker, louder, are full of a tale of weltering
confusion, marine disaster, a ship in sore labour; there is a steady
beating like the sound of pumps, and a trickle of treble notes. There
are black silences, like thunderclouds, that burst into flashes of
music. Now the poor melody swings up into t