The master shook his head. "Music represents nothing," he said. "Music is music. It is not an imitation of a sylvan scene, or church bells heard in the distance, or any other rubbish. I call this music 'The Sylvan Sonata' merely because it has in it different phases of woodland feeling. You understand me? It is the kind of music that might occur to the mind of a musician when he was walking through a wood."
"But how that reminds one," said the great lady. "It was in the wood that your favourite pupil died."
"I prefer," said the master sternly, "not to speak of that."
He preferred also not to think of it. The piano which had been bequeathed to him was kept closed and locked now, and it was on another instrument in another room that he prepared himself for the great occasion. He was a fine executant, as not every composer is. He tried to cheat himself. He said again and again to himself that what he had seen and heard in the music-room that night was illusion. The notes had not really moved. His brain had been over-wrought with worry and anxiety. The music was really his own. But the attempt to cheat himself was idle, for he knew too much of the characteristics of a promising young composer who was now dead. No one else but him could have written that.
The evening came and the occasion found him equal to it. His playing of "The Sylvan Sonata" was as near perfection as a man may attain. When he had finished there were a few seconds of silence before the audience could get back to the world again and begin their applause. And when that had died away, many came up to congratulate him, and a critic of music spoke.
"I am ashamed of myself," said the critic. "I confess that I had thought, in company with many others, that you declined in power, maestro. You have given us to-night something more superb than we have ever heard from you before. You are at your very highest at this minute."
The master did not seem to hear, did not seem to see the hands which were stretched out to him. He sat looking intently before him, as at some presence not visible to the others. And when he was summoned to speak to the King, he rose stiffly and moved mechanically, looking now and again over his shoulder, as at someone who followed him.
And when the King had finished his compliments, he drew a deep breath, as of one who makes an effort. He swung round and pointed with a wave of his hand.
"Alas, sir," he said, "I am not he who made 'The Sylvan Sonata'. But the composer is here. See him. He stands behind me. The face was somewhat crushed by the fall of the tree, but it is made well again. It is as it always was. It is his music, not mine, that I have played to you."
He stepped backward from the royal presence. The shiver of sensation went through the great assembly. This was clearly aberration. Someone should see to the old man. The trial had been too great for him, and his reason had been overcome. A doctor should be summoned.