He hated her when her feelings remained unmoved. If he at last came to see, after much introspection, that she was right, then he would have liked to fall down and worship the unknown power that was so inexorable in pointing him the way.
Spindler had a beautiful harp which he had bequeathed to Daniel in his will. It had remained in Ansbach in the possession of the old lady who kept house for him. Daniel had forgotten all about the harp. After his marriage he had it sent to him.
He kept it in the living room; Gertrude was fond of looking at it. It enticed her. One day she sat down and tried to draw tones from its strings. She touched the strings very gently, and was charmed with the melody that came from them. Gradually she learned the secret; she discovered the law. An innate talent made the instrument submissive to her; she was able to express on it all the longings and emotions she had experienced in her dark and lonely hours.
She generally played very softly; she never tried intricate melodies, for the harp was adapted to the expression of simple, dream-like harmonies. The tones were wafted out into the hall and up the stairs; they greeted Daniel as he entered the old house.
When he came into the room, Gertrude was sitting in a corner by the stove, the harp between her knees. She smiled mysteriously to herself; her hands, like strange beings loosed from her body, sought chords and melodies that were his, and which she was trying to translate to her own world of dreams.
VI
Her command of language was more defective now than ever. She was seized with painful astonishment when she noticed that in matters of daily intercourse Daniel’s mind was not able to penetrate the veil behind which she lived.
He said to himself: she is too heavy. He was dumbfounded at her conduct, and displeased with it.
“The gloomy house oppresses you,” he said in a tone of ill humour, when she smiled in her helpless way.
“Let us run a race,” he said to her one day as they were taking a walk through the country. An old tree in the distance that had been struck by lightning was to be their objective.