not only that. It's the music itself--I think
I can't stand it any more. I don't know."

"Too emotional? Too much feeling for you?"

"Yes, perhaps. But no. What I can't stand is chords, you know:
harmonies. A number of sounds all sounding together. It just makes me
ill. It makes me feel so sick."

"What--do you want discords?--dissonances?"

"No--they are nearly as bad. No, it's just when any number of musical
notes, different notes, come together, harmonies or discords. Even a
single chord struck on the piano. It makes me feel sick. I just feel as
if I should retch. Isn't it strange? Of course, I don't tell Manfredi.
It would be too cruel to him. It would cut his life in two."

"But then why do you have the music--the Saturdays--then?"

"Oh, I just keep out of the way as much as possible. I'm sure you feel
there is something wrong with me, that I take it as I do," she added, as
if anxious: but half ironical.

"No--I was just wondering--I believe I feel something the same myself. I
know orchestra makes me blind with hate or I don't know what. But I want
to throw bombs."

"There now. It does that to me, too. Only now it has fairly got me down,
and I feel nothing but helpless nausea. You know, like when you are
seasick."

Her dark-blue, heavy, haunted-looking eyes were resting on him as if
she hoped for something. He watched her face steadily, a curious
intelligence flickering on his own.

"Yes," he said. "I understand it. And I know, at the bottom, I'm like
that. But I keep myself from realising, don't you know? Else perhaps,
where should I be? Because I make my life and my living at it, as well."

"At music! Do you! But how bad for you. But perhaps the flute is
different. I have a feeling that it is. I can think of one single
pipe-note--yes, I can think of it quite, quite calmly. And I can't even
think of the piano, or of the violin with its tremolo, or of orchestra,
or of a string quartette--or even a military band--I can't think of
it without a shudder. I can only bear drum-and-fife. Isn't it crazy of
me--but from the other, from what we call music proper, I've endured too
much. But bring your flute one day. Bring it, will you? And let me hear
it quite alone. Quite, quite alone. I think it might do me an awful lot
of good. I do, really. I can imagine it." She closed her eyes and her
strange, sing-song lapsing voice came to an end. She spoke almost like
one in a trance--or a sleep-walker.

"I've got it