ther pianos, square,
upright and grand; pianos of sinister and menacing expression; pianos
with cruel grinning teeth; pianos of obsolete and anonymous shapes;
pianos that leered at him, sneered at him with screaming dissonances.
The din was infernal, the clangor terrific; and as the pianist, hemmed
in and riding this whirlwind of splintered sounding-boards, jangling
wires and crunching lyres, closed his eyes expecting the last awful
plunge into the ghastly abyss, a sudden, piercing tone penetrated the
thick of the storm; as if by sorcery, the turmoil faded away, and,
looking about him, Mychowski's disordered senses took note of an
exquisite valley in which rapidly flowed a tiny silvery stream. Carpeted
with green and fragrant with flowers, the landscape was magical, and
most melancholy was the music made by the running waters. Never had the
artist heard such music, and in the luminous haze of his mind it seemed
familiar. Three tones, three Gs in the treble and in octaves, sounded
clear to him; and again and once more they were heard in doubled rhythm.
A rippling prelude rained upon the meadows and Mychowski lay perfectly
entranced. He knew what was coming and knew not the music. Then a melody
fell from the trees as they whispered over the banks of the brook and it
was in the key of F minor. A nocturne; yet the day was young. Its
mournful reiterations darkened the sky; but about all, enchantment lay.
In G flat, so the sensitive ear of the pianist warned him, was his life
being borne; but only for a time. Back came the first persistent theme,
bringing with it overpowering richness of hue and scent, and then it
melted away in prismatic vapors....

"What is all this melodic madness?" asked Mychowski. He knew the music
made by the little river and trees, yet he groped as if in the toils of
a nightmare to name it. That solemn narrative in six-eight time in B
flat, where had he heard it? The glowing, glittering arabesques, the
trilling as if from the throats of a thousand larks, the cunning
imitations as if leaf mocked leaf in the sunshine! Again the first theme
in F minor, but amplified and enlarged with a spray of basses and under
a clouded sky. Without knowing why, the unhappy man felt the impending
catastrophe and hastened to escape it. But in vain. His feet were as
lead, and suddenly the heavens opened, fiercely lightened, the savage
thunder leaping upon him in chromatic dissonances; then a great
stillness in C major, and