The silence waited, deep and patient and unerring, as it had waited a decade—the touch of this man. A sound crossed it and the audience turned bewildered faces. Question and dissent and wonder were in them.... Not some mighty fugue, as they had hoped—not even an aria, but a simple air from a quaint, old-fashioned choral,—"By the waters, the waters of Babylon." They looked at one another with lifted brows. Reinken's choral!—and played with Reinken's very touch—a gentle, hurrying rhythm ... as Reinken used to play it—when he was young.... In a moment they understood. Tears stood in bewildered eyes and a look of sweet good-will swept the church. He had given back to them their own. Their thought ran tenderly to the old man above, hearkening to his own soul coming to him, strong and swift and eternal, out of the years. Underneath the choral and above it and around, went the soul of Bach, steadfast and true, wishing only to serve, and through service making beautiful. He filled with wonder and majesty and tenderness the simple old choral.
A murmur ran through the church, a sound of love and admiration. And above, with streaming eyes, an old man groped his way to the organ, his hands held out to touch the younger ones that reached to him. "I thought my work had died," he said slowly, "Now that it lives, I can die in peace."