Träumerei
He stood at the side of the brilliantly lighted opera-house with a note-book and pencil in his hand. Would that interminable symphony never be finished? The audience listened breathlessly, but he, the musical critic of a thriving daily paper, only drummed idly with his fingers and stared vacantly at the people near him.
There was a momentary hush, the orchestra leader waved his baton, and the trained musicians, with perfect precision began the brilliant finale. The audience was unusually sympathetic, and for an instant after the closing passage all was still; then came a great burst of applause.
The leader bowed his acknowledgment, but the clamour only increased. The critic sank wearily into an empty seat and looked across the house. He started and grew pale, as among the throng of fashionables he saw a face that he knew—that he had known.
A sweet face it was too; not beautiful, but full of subtle charm and a haunting tenderness that he had tried to forget. He sat like one in a dream, and did not know that the orchestra was about to play the next number till its opening measures woke him from his abstraction.
Träumerei! Anything but that! Oh, God, this needless pain! And he thought he had forgotten!