He went over to the bed, took one of Pons’ hands in both his own, and within himself put up a fervent prayer.

“What is that that you are mumbling in German?”

“I asked Gott dat He vould take us poth togedders to Himself!” Schmucke answered simply when he had finished his prayer.

Pons bent over—­it was a great effort, for he was suffering intolerable pain; but he managed to reach Schmucke, and kissed him on the forehead, pouring out his soul, as it were, in benediction upon a nature that recalled the lamb that lies at the foot of the Throne of God.

“See here, listen, my good Schmucke, you must do as dying people tell you—­”

“I am lisdening.”

“The little door in the recess in your bedroom opens into that closet.”

“Yes, but it is blocked up mit bictures.”

“Clear them away at once, without making too much noise.”

“Yes.”

“Clear a passage on both sides, so that you can pass from your room into mine.—­Now, leave the door ajar.—­When La Cibot comes to take your place (and she is capable of coming an hour earlier than usual), you can go away to bed as if nothing had happened, and look very tired.  Try to look sleepy.  As soon as she settles down into the armchair, go into the closet, draw aside the muslin curtains over the glass door, and watch her. . . .  Do you understand?”

“I oondershtand; you belief dat die pad voman is going to purn der vill.”

“I do not know what she will do; but I am sure of this—­that you will not take her for an angel afterwards.—­And now play for me; improvise and make me happy.  It will divert your thoughts; your gloomy ideas will vanish, and for me the dark hours will be filled with your dreams. . . .”

Schmucke sat down at the piano.  Here he was in his element; and in a few moments, musical inspiration, quickened by the pain with which he was quivering and the consequent irritation that followed came upon the kindly German, and, after his wont, he was caught up and borne above the world.  On one sublime theme after another he executed variations, putting into them sometimes Chopin’s sorrow, Chopin’s Raphael-like perfection; sometimes the stormy Dante’s grandeur of Liszt—­the two musicians who most nearly approach Paganini’s temperament.  When execution reaches this supreme degree, the executant stands beside the poet, as it were; he is to the composer as the actor is to the writer of plays, a divinely inspired interpreter of things divine.  But that night, when Schmucke gave Pons an earnest of diviner symphonies, of that heavenly music for which Saint Cecile let fall her instruments, he was at once Beethoven and Paganini, creator and interpreter.  It was an outpouring of music inexhaustible as the nightingale’s song—­varied and full of delicate undergrowth as the forest flooded with her trills; sublime as the sky overhead.  Schmucke played as he had never played before, and the soul of the old musician listening to him rose to ecstasy such as Raphael once painted in a picture which you may see at Bologna.