sat down again and played Beethoven’s Sonata in cis-moll, which was not on the programme.  There is, I believe, no composition in the whole world that shows with the same distinctness the soul torn by tragic conflict; especially in the third part of the Sonata, the Presto-agitato.  The music evidently responded to the tune of Clara’s soul, and certainly harmonized with my own disposition, for never had I heard Beethoven interpreted and understood like this before.  I am not a musician, but I suppose even musicians do not know how much there is in that Sonata.  I cannot find another word than “oppressiveness” to describe the sensation wrought upon the audience.  One had a feeling as if mystical rites were being performed; there rose before me a vast desert, not of this world, weird and unutterably sad, without shape, half lit up by a ghostly moon, in the midst of which hopeless despair waited and sobbed and tore its hair.  It was terrible and impressive because so unearthly; and yet irresistibly attractive,—­never had my spirit come in such close proximity to the infinite.  It was almost an hallucination.  I imagined that in the shapeless desert, in the dusk of a world of shadows, I was searching for somebody dearer to me than the whole world, one without whom I could not and would not live, and I searched with the conviction that I should have to search forever and never find what I was looking for.  My heart was so oppressed that at times I could scarcely breathe.  I paid no attention to the mechanical part of the execution, which no doubt was as perfect as the expression.

All in the room seemed under the same spell, not excepting Clara herself.

When she left off playing she remained for a moment with uplifted head and eyes, lips slightly parted, and face very pale.  And it was not a mere concert effect, it was real inspiration and forgetfulness of self.

There was a great hush in that crowd, as if they expected something, or were benumbed by sorrow, or tried to catch the last echo of sobbing despair, carried away by a wind from the other world.

Presently there happened what probably never happened in a concert room before.  A great tumult arose, and such an outcry as if a catastrophe were threatening the whole audience.  Several musicians and reporters approached the platform.  I saw their heads bowed over Clara’s hands, she had tears on her eyelashes, her face looked still inspired, but calm and serene.  I went with the others to press her hands.

From the first moment of our acquaintance Clara had always addressed me in French; now for the first time, returning the pressure of my hand, she said in German: 

“Haben Sie mich verstanden?”

“Ja,” I replied, “und ich war sehr ungluecklich!” And it was true.

The continuation of the concert was one great triumph.  After the performance Sniatynski and his wife carried Clara off to their house.  I had no wish to go there.  When I reached home, I felt so tired that without undressing I threw myself upon the sofa, and remained there an hour without moving, yet not asleep.