Belus shook Zora's shoulders when he returned from the concert. "Why, your hair is wet; you must have been asleep on the balcony in the rain," he irritably fingered in the deaf code. Still possessed by the melodious terror of her dream, the rare audible dream of one born to silence, she arose from her chair and waved him a gentle good-night. He stared moodily after her and rang for the servant....
The hearts of some women are as a vast cathedral. Its gorgeous high altars, its sounding gloom, its lofty arches are there; and perhaps a tiny taper burns before an obscure votive shrine. Many pass through life with this taper unlighted, despite the pomps and pleasures of the conjugal comedy. But others carry in the little chapel of their hearts a solitary glimmering lamp of love which only flames out with death. Zora knows this glimmering light is not love, but renunciation. Is not she the wife of a great artist?
THE DISENCHANTED SYMPHONY
The Earth hath bubbles—
—Macbeth.
Pobloff began to whistle the second theme of his symphony. He was a short, round-bellied man with a high head upon which stood quill-like hair; when he smiled, his little lunar eyes closed completely, and his vast mouth opened—a trap filled with white blocks of polished bone; when he laughed, it sounded like a snorting tuba.... Nature had hesitated whether to endow him with the profile of Punch or Napoleon. He was dark, not in the least dangerous, and a native of Russia, though long a resident of Balak. Pobloff's wife dusted the music on the top of his old piano. "In God's name, Luga, let my manuscript in peace," he adjured her. She snapped at him, but he continued whistling. "More original music?" She was ironically inquisitive as she danced about the white porcelain stove, tumbled over scores that littered the apartment as grass grown wild in a deserted alley; pushed violin cases that rattled; upset an empty bird-cage and finally threw wide back the metal-slatted shutters, admitting an inundation of sunshine.... It was early May, but in Balak, with its southeastern Europe climate, the weather was warm as a July day in Paris. "Hurrah!" Pobloff suddenly bellowed, "I have it, I have it!" Luga glanced at him sourly. "I suppose you'll set the world on fire this time for sure, my man; and then little Richard Strauss will be asking for advice! What are you going to call the new symphonic poem, Pobloff? Oh, name it after me!" She shrieked down the passage way at a slouching maid, and ran out, leaving Pobloff jolly and unruffled.
"Ouf!" he ejaculated, as her sarcasm finally penetrated his consciousness, "I'll call it 'The Fourth Dimension'—that's what I will. Luga! Where's that idle cat? Luga, some tea, tea, I'm thirsty." And he again whistled the second theme of his new symphony.
I