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incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to neither the time nor
the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail to act dangerously.
On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful manner. One would
have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of which I was formerly
ignorant, had developed in me. 'Ah, yes, that's it! Not at all as I
lived and thought before! This is the right way to live!'
"
Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was this new
thing that I thus learned? That I did not realize, but the consciousness
of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that state there was no
room for jealousy. The same faces, and among them HE and my wife, I saw
in a different light. This music transported me into an unknown world,
where there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy and the feelings that
provoke it seemed to me trivialities, nor worth thinking of.
"After the presto followed the andante, not very new, with commonplace
variations, and the feeble finale. Then they played more, at the request
of the guests,--first an elegy by Ernst, and then various other pieces.
They were all very well, but did not produce upon me a tenth part of the
impression that the opening piece did. I felt light and gay throughout
the evening. As for my wife, never had I seen her as she was that night.
Those brilliant eyes, that severity and majestic expression while she
was playing, and then that utter languor, that weak, pitiable, and happy
smile after she had finished,--I saw them all and attached no importance
to them, believing that she felt as I did, that to her, as to me, new
sentiments had been revealed, as through a fog. During almost the whole
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