e wish to hear
her. The quick and eager haste with which she took off her ringing and
rattling bracelets, which Eric at once with marked attentiveness
received from her hand and placed upon the marble table under the
mirror,--the manner in which she poised her hands like two fluttering
pinions, and then brought them down upon the keys, like a swimmer who
is in his element,--all served to show how resolved she was to occupy
no second place. And never, since she had been Clodwig's wife, had
Bella played as she now did in the presence of a third person,
reserving hitherto her masterly performance on the piano for Clodwig
alone. To-day her execution displayed such zest and skill that Clodwig
himself, who knew every peculiar excellence in her method of playing,
received a new surprise and delight.

During a pause, Eric seemed to strike the right key by remarking, that,
after such elevated enjoyment in the intercourse with noble persons and
in the wide survey of unbounded nature, there is nothing for the soul
but to let the feelings dissolve and die away in the unlimited and
shoreless ethereal atmosphere of music. A realm of waking dreams is
then opened to us, a feeling of the infinite is awakened, that creates
a something beyond what any word or look can express, and which is
never unfolded by any sight or sound of nature from the unfathomed and
mysterious depths of the human soul. As in answer to the inquiry, what
influence predominated in him before composing, Mozart said, 'nothing
but music which _would_ come out,'--the pure musical impulse without
any definite conception, without any limiting idea, only a rhythmic,
billowy undulation of tones,--so it is that we, after the tension of
thought and observation, through music are admitted into that pure,
undefined, yet all-encompassing realm, which is a chaos, but a chaos
that is no longer formless and void.

Bella, who sat reclining far back in a large arm-chair, gazed at Eric
in such rapt wonder, that he dropt his eyes, unconsciously fixed upon
her. To the surprise of both the men she suddenly rose, and bade them
good night. She first gave her hand to Clodwig, then to Eric, and then
to Clodwig again, and quickly went out.

Clodwig remained only a short time with his guest, and then he also
took his leave. Eric went, in a sort of ecstacy, to his chamber. How
rich was the world! what a day this had been from the dawn in the dewy
wood even until this moment! and human happi