rates. He is the great
denier of all things natural, and his revengeful, theatric music is in
the guise of a woman. The art nears its end; its spiritual suicide is at
hand. Stannum lifted his gaze. Surely he recognized that little
dominating figure directing the orchestra. Was it the tragic-comedian
Richard Wagner? Were those his ardent, mocking eyes fading in the mist?
A fat cowled monk marches stealthily after Wagner. He shades his eyes
from the fierce rays of the noonday sun; more grateful to him are
moon-rays and the reflected light of lonely pools. He is the
Arch-Hypocrite of Tone who speaks in divers tongues. It is Johannes
Brahms, and he wears the mask of a musical masker.... Then swirled near
a band of gypsies and moors, with guitars, tambourines, mandolins and
castanets, led by Bizet; Africa seemed familiar land. Gounod and his
simpering "Faust" went on tiptoe; a horde of Calmucks and Cossacks
stampeded them, Tschaikowsky and Rimski-Korsakoff at their head. These
yelled and played upon resounding Svirelis, Balalaikas, and Kobzas
dancing the Ziganka all the while; and as a still more horrible uproar
fell upon Stannum's ears, he was aware of a change in the face of the
Sphinx: streaked with gray, it seemed to be crumbling. As the clatter
increased Stannum diverted his regard from the great stone and beheld an
orgiastic mob of men and women howling and playing upon instruments of
fulgurating colors and vile shapes. Their skins were of white, their
hair yellow, and their eyes of victorious blue. "Nietzsche's Great Blond
Barbarians, the Apes of Wagner!" exclaimed Stannum, and he felt the
earth falling away from him. The naked music, pulsatile and drowsy,
turned hysterical as Zarathustra-Strauss waved on his Uebermensch with an
iron hammer and in frenzied, philosophic motions. Music was become
vertiginous; a mad vortex, wherein whirled mad atoms, madly embracing.
Dancing, the dissonant corybantes of the Dionysian evangel flitted by,
scarce touching earth in their efforts to outvie the Bacchantes. With
peals of thunderous and ironical laughter the Sphinx sank into the
murmuring sand, yawning, "Music is Woman." ...

And then the tone grew higher and ultra-violet; the air darkened with
vapors; the shrillness was so exceeding that it modulated into Hertzian
waves and merged into light; this vibratile, argent light pierced
Stannum's eyes. He found himself staring into the Egyptian mirror while
about him beat the torrentia