Evening darkens slowly into the calm spring night,—that Frühlingsnacht which he has set forth in such exquisite music—as he regains his home and rejoins his wife. She is practising softly lest the children awaken, but rises with a smile of joy, and receives her husband as though he had been a year away. Side by side, holding each others' hands, they sit by the window and inhale the sweet April air. A sense of beatitude encompasses them.
"Hast thou done well to-day, Robert?" she enquires.
"Well? Yes—very well: better than I hoped or expected. A soft voice seemed to whisper to me whilst I worked, 'It is not in vain that thou art writing.'... But in such an hour as this, my Clara, I long more deeply to give expression to my holiest thoughts. To apply his powers to sacred music must always be the loftiest aim of an artist. In youth we are all too firmly rooted to earth with its joys and sorrows: but with advancing age, our branches extend higher. And so I hope the time for my efforts in this direction is not far distant."
"It is, then, at present, eluding you—the study of sacred music?"
"It demands a power of treating the chorus—a knowledge of superb ensemble and massive effects to which I have not yet attained." And he heaves a sigh as of one faced with mighty problems. For to this man, "from whom the knowledge of no emotion in the individual heart is withheld, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to give expression to ... those feelings which affect the whole of mankind in common."
"For you, who can realize human love so devoutly, there should be no eventual hindrance to the expression of love towards God," says the little dark-eyed woman, pressing his hand with warm devotion.
"You yourself are the concrete expression of love towards God," the composer murmurs, gazing down at her in the twilight—"you and your music together. If I once said I loved you because of your goodness, it is only half true. Everything is so harmoniously combined in your nature, that I cannot think of you apart from your music—and so I love you one with the other." A sudden spasm contracts his face as he speaks—he turns his head wildly to and fro.
"Robert!" she exclaims, "what is the matter? You shuddered—your hand has gone cold and clammy. What ails you?"
"What are those distant wind-instruments?" he asks in awestruck tones. "What are they playing? Don't you hear? Such harmonies are too beautiful for earth...."
Clara strains her ears into the stillness. "There is nothing—nothing audible whatever," she asseverates. "Robert, you are ill—you have overworked your head—"