Krafft sprang up. With a precipitance that was the extreme opposite of
his previous sloth, he lowered both window-blinds, and, lighting two
candles, set them on the piano, where they dispersed the immediate
darkness, but no more.

"I am going to play TRISTAN to you."

Maurice had learnt by this time that it was useless to try to thwart
Krafft. He laughed and nodded, and having nothing in particular to do,
lay down in the latter's place on the sofa.

Krafft shook his hair back, and began the prelude to the opera in a
rapt, ecstatic way, finding in the music an outlet for all his
nervousness. At first, he played from memory; when this gave out, he
set the piano-score up before him, then forgot it again, and went on
playing by heart. Sometimes he sang the different parts, in a light,
sweet tenor; sometimes recited them, with dramatic fervour. Only he
never ceased to play, never gave his hearer a moment in which to
recover himself.

Frau Schulz's entry with the lamp, and her grumblings at the
"UNVERSCHAMTE SPEKTAKEL" passed unheeded. A strength that was more
than human seemed to take possession of the frail youth at the piano.
Evening crept on afternoon, night on evening, and still he continued,
drunk with the most emotional music conceived by a human brain.

Even when hands and fingers could do no more, the frenzy that was in
him would not let him rest: he paced the room, and talked--talked for
hours, his eyes ablaze. A church-clock struck ten, then half-past,
then eleven, and not for a moment was he still; his speech seemed,