..."
"Just consider how quickly everything passes away"--interrupted her
husband. "It seems to me that one grows old much more rapidly now-a-days,
than one used to do. In my father's house Haydn and Mozart were played
a great deal, although they were dead long before he was born. And now
--now Gounod has grown old-fashioned already! How distressing it is to
meet again the ideals of one's youth under these altered circumstances!
And how horrible it is to feel old age approaching!"
He got up and sat down again at the piano; he took the music and turned
over the pages as if he were looking for keepsakes, locks of hair,
dried flowers and ends of ribbon in the drawer of a writing-table.
His eyes were riveted on the black notes which looked like little birds
climbing up and down a wire fencing; but where were the spring songs,
the passionate protestations, the jubilant avowals of the rosy days of
first love? The notes stared back at him like strangers; as if the
memory of life's spring-time were grown over with weeds.
Yes, that was it; the strings were covered with dust, the sounding board
was dried up, the felt worn away.
A heavy sigh echoed through the room, heavy as if it came from a hollow
chest, and then silence fell.
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