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BEETHOVEN'S MOONLIGHT SONATA.
It happened at Bonn. One moonlight winter's evening I called on Beethoven, for I wanted him to take a walk, and afterward to sup with me. In passing through some dark narrow street he paused suddenly. "Hush!" he said, "what sound is that? It is from my symphony in F," he said eagerly. "Hark, how well it is played!"
It was a little, mean dwelling; and we paused outside and listened. The player went on; but in the midst of the finale there was a sudden break, then the voice sobbing: "I can not play any more—it is so beautiful, it is so utterly beyond my power to do it justice. Oh! what would I not give to go to the concert at Cologne!"
"Ah, my sister," said her companion, "why create regrets when there is no remedy? We can scarcely pay our rent."
"You are right; and yet I wish, for once in my life, to hear some really good music. But it is of no use."
Beethoven looked at me. "Let us go in," he said.
"Go in!" I exclaimed. "What can we go in for?"
"I will play to her," he said, in an excited tone. "Here is feeling— genius—understanding. I will play to her, and she will understand it!" And before I could prevent him his hand was upon the door.
A pale young man was sitting by the table, making shoes; and near him, leaning sorrowfully upon an old-fashioned harpsichord, sat a young girl, with a profusion of light hair falling over her bent face. Both were cleanly but very poorly dressed, and both started and turned towards us as we entered.