At midnight, the day’s work over, he left the Café and sought his lodging. There were no stars. Thunder had begun to mutter, but as yet no rain had fallen. Faint fires trembled in the sky. Xavier felt the excitement of something important about to happen. His brain teemed with ideas. As soon as he got home, he would begin to compose.
“‘The Storm!’” he said, suddenly, speaking aloud. “The storm that never breaks—that’s an idea, and a damned good one, too. The storm that is always threatening and never begins. Something brooding, something gathering itself together, something couching, something licking its chops. And nothing ever happening.”
He knitted his brows in deep thought, and by the time he had reached his room, musical ideas for his composition were already filling his mind.
He sat down and wrote. Muted horns cried mysteriously on the paper before him in discords that were continually on the point of being, but never were, resolved.... At the end of an hour he read what he had written; from the very first bar it was good. It was with difficulty that he kept his excitement under control. He worked without effort, without thought, but with deep and disturbed feeling. His pen moved mechanically, and he could but wonder at its strange activity.
Just before dawn, he lay down and fell asleep. At the end of the third hour of his slumber, he awoke suddenly, all his senses fresh and alert. The sun was in his room. Anxiously he bounded out of bed, and sat down at his little table near the window, scanning his MS. with eager eyes. The muted horns made magic music. Yes—it was fine! Every note of it was fine! How mysteriously yet significantly the strings stirred! How broodingly the wood-wind kept suggesting the principal theme that was never fully stated!
It was with a trembling fear that he took his pen in hand. Had his inspiration failed? Had that mood gone? No: without effort he began at the point at which he had left off. Though it was happy day outside, the storm was still brewing on his paper. Little flickers of flame danced on his sky’s edge: a black turbulence was at his zenith....
Three days later, his Symphonic Poem was finished, and he sought out Judith Lesueur that she might share his joy.
“Oh, Miss Lesueur,” he said, bursting into her flat, “do sympathize with me!”
“What is it?” she asked. “Has someone been horrid to you?”
“No: I’m so happy I can’t remain alone. I’ve written a wonderful work: I can’t believe it is I who have written it. And really—don’t laugh at me!—it just seemed to me all the time that somebody else was writing it for me.”