As soon as Annette had finished the pastoral symphony by Mehul, the Countess rose, took her place, and awakened a strange melody with her fingers, a melody of which all the phrases seemed complaints, divers complaints, changing, numerous, interrupted by a single note, beginning again, falling into the midst of the strains, cutting them short, scanning them, crashing into them, like a monotonous, incessant, persecuting cry, an unappeasable call of obsession.
But Olivier was looking at Annette, who had sat down facing him, and he heard nothing, comprehended nothing.
He looked at her, without thinking, indulging himself with the sight of her, as a good and habitual possession of which he had been deprived, drinking her youthful beauty wholesomely, as we drink water when thirsty.
“Well,” said the Countess, “was not that beautiful?”
“Admirable! Superb!” he said, aroused. “By whom?”
“You do not know it?”
“No.”
“What, really, you do not know it?”
“No, indeed.”
“By Schubert.”