"Are you one of those also who must see in order to believe?" he said, half angrily. "Where do you suppose your music comes from? Where do you suppose any music comes from that is not mere imitation? The greatest composers of the world have been mere receptacles of sound; and the emptier they were of self-love and vanity, the greater quantity of heaven-born melody they held. The German Wagner—did he not himself say that he walked up and down in the avenues, 'trying to catch the harmonies as they floated in the air'? Come with me—come back to the place you left, and I will see if you, like Wagner, are able to catch a melody flying."
He grasped my unresisting arm, and led me, half-frightened, half-curious, into the little chapel, where he bade me seat myself at the organ.
"Do not play a single note," he said, "till you are compelled."
And standing beside me, Heliobas laid his hands on my head, then pressed them on my ears, and finally touched my hands, that rested passively on the keyboard.
He then raised his eyes, and uttered the name I had often thought of but never mentioned—the name he had called upon in my dream.
"Azul!" he said, in a low, penetrating voice, "open the gateways of the Air that we may hear the sound of Song!"
A soft rushing noise of wind answered his adjuration. This was followed by a burst of music, transcendently lovely, but unlike any music I had ever heard. There were sounds of delicate and entrancing tenderness such as no instrument made by human hands could produce; there was singing of clear and tender tone, and of infinite purity such as no human voices could be capable of. I listened, perplexed, alarmed, yet entranced. Suddenly I distinguished a melody running through the wonderful air-symphonies—a melody like a flower, fresh and perfect. Instinctively I touched the organ and began to play it; I found I could produce it note for note. I forgot all fear in my delight, and I played on and on in a sort of deepening rapture. Gradually I became aware that the strange sounds about me were dying slowly away; fainter and fainter they grew—softer—farther—and finally ceased. But the melody—that one distinct passage of notes I had followed out—remained with me, and I played it again and again with feverish eagerness lest it should escape me. I had forgotten the presence of Heliobas. But a touch on my shoulder roused me. I looked up and met his eyes fixed upon, me with a steady and earnest regard. A shiver ran through, me, and I felt bewildered.
"Have I lost it?" I asked.
"Lost what?" he demanded.
"The tune I heard—the harmonies."