Julia - Das Urteil

Vienna, Austria
1934
I

-It is dawn. I think it is dawn.

I think it must or ought to have been

dawn. Perhaps the streaks of growing

light show that it could be dawn.

-But what light does not grow

stronger it its force -- which draws

not from passing time the power of

Oilthe coming of the sun.

-It is dusk, I know it to be dusk.

It was this instant that one Alban

woke from tortured reveries into the

silence of a spring. He glanced out

of the window to see the light of

the dying day pour through the

window. He realizes the sun has set

and that the first glistening of

Venus falling towards the Western

Horizon has pierced the glare of

day.

He startles and looks towards the

door frame. It is his wife - wearing

a sour expression that said she was

disappointed that he had dozed off

on the sofa again, papers scattered

before him, notes scrawled on some -

numbers on others. He hunched

protectively over them. Even though

she could not have divined the

secrets on the pages. Even though he

knew that she already knew them.

It struck him at this instant how

much she and Maestro Schönberg were

alike - she could not have learned

the sour look from him, nor he from

her. It must be something from up

out of the unconscious of man - a

shape that reached the face - a sour

fear brought to light.

"Manon,” his wife gave a pause, “has

died. I heard it only a few minutes

ago. The sickness has claimed her.”

Alban Berg came slowly and groggily

to realization, the way people who

are used to stimulants do when they

do not have the substance of their

thought to hand. When their world

seems hazy and dark, and the blood

of thought does not flow within

them.

He furrows his brow.

“She has gone to be among the other

angels then, first Gustav, then her.

Soon the whole world I fear. Will

there be no joy left within it?”

The wife turned.

“Not if the least and lowest spawn

of Vienna's artistic community has

much to say of it. I find it hard to

understand how Anton has such

admiration for him.”

Alban reached a standing state, his

rumpled clothes were creased from

having been sweat in and then slept

in. He pushed his steel-wool hair

back and moved up behind his wife,

grasping his arms around her.

“Do not talk of such things.

Politics passes, only the infinite

will remain. And all we do, “he

waited for an instant - a pause in a

phrase such as his mentor loved so

much, “and all that we write - will

only last in so far as it reflects

that infinite perfection.”

The last sentence brought a sigh,

and having stated as he wished to

state - he the began to cry and his

weight collapsed downward on his

wife, and his embrace became a

grasp. His sobs were short and

broken sharp by wheezing and

gasping.

The light had faded and the piercing

veil of the evening star was clearly

visible. Gradually the brightness of

Orion's red eye came forth and the

arc of the end of winter stars above

it.

Alban pulled himself to standing,

looked out the window straight at

Venus in the west.

“Goodbye my angel. For the last

time - goodbye.”

The calendar showed the date of the

22nd of April in the one thousand

nine hundred and thirty-fifth year

of the current era. The clock ticked

with its sharp slicing clicks and

showed the time to be half past

twenty.

Now it is a large vista – Far south of town. It happens that it is only a cottage in the sense that it is far removed from any other place of habitation. It has three stories, and each story several rooms. It is here that the Berg family resides to get away from the drudge and dyne of Vienna. At the time the building is alone.

- Someone must have been telling

truths about me - or else how could

she have known?

- Moments ago she came to me in a

uniform. I had drifted to sleep upon

the couch after having thought and

sketched for several hours - and

then she came and woke me. And she

was staring at me. I looked at her.

- “What do you want?” “Weren’t you

supposed to bring me some food?”

“How do you explain this?”

- Behind her where there had been

the little wall cluttered with

little books - there instead was a

vast gaping emptiness. I could see

all of Vienna that lies to the south

and east - at first I thought how

strange for all those chimneys to be

lit - for the night was not cold.

But it was no wafting, wafting smoke

- but buildings and bodies and all

of a block by burning - transformed

into soot and ash.

-The tableau it framed her face as

she looked at me.

- “I meant well.”

And then Alban awoke again. There

was tea laid out. He stood up and

went out to get a bit of air, and

smoke a cigarette in that air. He

descended down the curving steps,

down the creaking wooden boards of

tiny steps. Tiny steps.

Outside his head began to clear and

he looked out over the east - just

smoke from fires - for the air was

crisply cold. He turned his eyes to

the west, toward the country side,

which he could not really see, but

only imagine.

There in the sky, angry red Mars

glared down upon him.

He drew deeply down upon the

cigarette. His mind’s eye was a play

- he could see the movements of the

young girl Manon imitated in the way

the shadows played from lamp light.

He decided to walk quickly around

the block - to clear the head. The

head - clearing the head. He turned

the corner too quickly and was

startled when he encountered at eye

level a grey feline that stalked the

neighborhood for mice.

For a moment - super imposed upon

the soft features of the real cat -

was the scowling visage from

Schönberg's “The Happy Hand” - a

cat a cat a cat that cat that has

its fangs sunk into an artist's

neck.

He stared at the cat. The twitching

of its tail reminded him of the

movements of an arm - then of a leg.

A reverie transported him high among

the hills far from the city. Back to

places where one could still hear

folk songs woven amidst people's

speech and the old dances in their

steps. He saw Manon's sharp pointed

face and wicked grin as she had

first smoked a cigarette he had

provided for her.

Outside of view - just barely - of

so many other people - people who

were dancing, dancing, so happy, so

joyous. And he was not. He had come

to the country to be with Hanna, but

had taken Manon along as somehow of

a cover. He had wandered from the

wooden floors soaked with beer and

sweat to look out at the open air

and the stars hanging the bleak

late summer twilight.

She had stolen in upon him and

touched his shoulder. He neither

remembered her coming towards him,

nor lighting a cigarette. He turned

to look at her. With her mother’s

face and features, but her father’s

piercing architectural eyes. Eyes

that saw the shape of things. He was

never certain how much of her grace

was really just seeing faster than

everyone else.

There was a point of awkwardness. As

a girl she was never an adult -

merely a child in the company of

adults. Here she was alone. He could

not help but see her as something

other than a child. He fumbled and

pulled out a cigarette from a case

and offered it to her.

She took it out and ran her fingers

along its length - looking at it

sideways. She considered it and then

placed it in her mouth with a

nonchalance born of observation

rather than practice. He lit it and

she drew in. Not so deeply as to

cause a cough, not so long as to

make her too heady. Long enough so

that smoke was wine in the air and

the breathing of it was to make one

drunk. She touched it lightly at its

base and took it out of her mouth.

“I had never smoked before. This is

my first.”

Alban nodded. “You’ll find that they

become your master after a very

short while. It is something that is

unbearable if not repeated.”

She blew smoke outward sharply. “Yes

I can tell that.” And placed the

cigarette back in her mouth, and

holding it between her two fingers

drew another short breath in. Her

chest pulling upwards as she did. He

watch the rise and fall, and

could feel in his throat that

dryness born of expectation. She

drew in her breath and her body

pulled in the smoke, tensing in

concentration, the expectation

growing as her lungs filled, and

then loosing out. As her mouth

smoked the cigarette, Alban's eyes

smoked her form.

He shook himself, and fell into

merely staring.

He stared at the eyes, and the mouth

that richly held the cigarette, at

the pointed small nose.

And then all of this resolved back

to the face of the cat. Suddenly he

was staring at the cat, as if the

face in the dream had been overlaid

upon it, and then vanished.

He stared and stared - only the

calling of a voice wakened him

again. A voice he barely caught the

tail end of.

“You can’t go out like this.”

His wife’s voice caught him, he

wakened from the memory. He turned

to face her. It was painful.

“Obviously you are upset at Manon's

leaving us. Everyone is. Why not

come back in. It is late and you

have much to do tomorrow.”

There was no arguing with her. He

allowed her to lead him back in tow -

all the while thinking about how her

block movements could not compare.

He looked again out on the city, a

cough - a spark from a factory smoke

stack burned upwards in an arch - a

short streak of light in the soot.

An arch, an angel, a vision of a

shape.

That night Alban stayed awake

looking at the ceiling as his wife

slept peacefully. He could not

sleep, as he feared the return of

the dreams the dreams, the dreams -

the dreams.

Instead he stayed awake with the

memory, not the memory of the girl

who was - but the memory of the

reverie remembering the girl who was.

Alban spent that night sleepless.

Now we are in Vienna, along one of the many rues which crisscross the land. Even now there is no tower which stands above and beyond things. It is spread out and almost tenuous in its nature.

Paint the walls, you dawn, ending sleepless

night and fading into drowsy day. Wishing will

not end the fatigue, but concentration of

misery might well reanimate the limbs of the

living.

She, the long suffering wife, found him seated

at the edge of the bed. his trousers drawn on,

his shirt, half pressed drawn across him, his

suspenders cast loosely over his shoulders. He

was hunched over and staring out the window at

the coming light.

“We need to pack up today, and leave for home.

I want everything to be clean, it was very

nice to be able to use this place, but the

weather is such that my breathing cannot stand

another day like yesterday.”

Alban turned to her mid-way through this

speech. It was strange to hear complaints of

health spoken of in such an energetic whine,

and laying out such a large agenda as the

ordering of a very disordered life. Merely

glancing around the room would cause the piles

of clothes, cast hither and yon, helter-skelter,

to assault the eye and create that

pressing, pressing; pressing: pressing in that

such disorder pushes in. Alban focused his

vision on the stern birdlike features of the

woman he had married and could hear the

drumbeat thought that was pounding in her mind

and marching on her face: “I shall order make,

order make, order, order, order, order.”

Which came out to him as “I shall orders give,

orders give, orders, orders, orders, orders.”

Softly up and down the tones of his voice

carved the words out:

“If that is what you wish. I will be amenable.”

She had drawn her knees up to her chest, and

in so doing sat up straight, and wrapped her

arms to embrace those legs. Her face rested on

her knees.

“I hope you won't go off driving about in your

motor car when the work must be done, you know

I hate doing it alone, and you know that we

ought not to spend the money having a girl

come in and help me. It would be a waste.”

The magpie had stolen in to the loft, and so

stealing, stole the precious hours that would

otherwise have been filled with work. How doth the

busy bee move hither thither on appointed

rounds. But bees could only hum, and not

compose. The disconnection between his mind

and his face was so much, that not a muscle

flickered to match in any noticeable way the

sour scowl that spread across his mood. He

could see in his min’s eye the face he wished

he could be making. But he did not.

And so the moment hung in silence, so locked

was he into doing nothing, that nothing was

all he could do. So active in focusing his

energies that sitting there, not moving,

became an exhausting battle. He felt his foot

start to shake and shimmer, the intensity

of maintaining languor reached into his bone and

was draining away the strength. He was waiting

for her to continue on, and thus relieve him

of saying nothing.

Since she was merely waiting for affirmation,

it cost her no great energy to wait, and wait,

and wait, and wait.

Finally the straining to maintain the

immobility collapsed and Alban with it,

hurling him onto the bed, sprawling.

“Later. I will help you later. I am too tired

at this particular moment.”

She drew her breath in and began to form an

"O" to sing out a rebuke, but it was too late

- he had fallen into sleep before the first

syllable could form itself into air.

Her mouth closed, she tousled his hair with

the remnants of affection, drew on a silken

robe frocked with floral pastel patterns and

backed with black, drew it tightly to caress

her skin as she walked down the hall intent on

performing her morning toilet. Once in the

small cramped bathroom she noted that there were

clouds, they were as grey fingers of a crone,

the crone of winter tearing at the sky. It

would be colder, and there would be a storm.

She turned back to face the sink the moment

she realized that her glance out the small

comer window had become an empty stare. She

focused her self on the mirror and checking

every blemish and wrinkle on the skin, her

eyes flicked over the curve of her cheek, and

to the flat under her eyes, and to places that

every woman knows, but men have not bothered

to give names to. The public history of men is

geography of land over time. The private

history of a woman is time over the geography

of the face. The hollows that grow up at base

of the eyes, the gradually swelling under the

lids, all carefully noted and fretted over.

She realized that she did not have so long this morning, her offensive against the imperfections of her face ended, she went to the kitchen to heat up water, and heard somewhere in the distance the soft turning of Alban in a restless dream, and the vague emanations of Vienna rousing itself to activity. It was a hollow sound that echoed inside the house, and inside herself.

-

A moment and then its gone, the fingers of left and right hands. Each hand striking each note exactly once, and only once. It was the discipline which Schoenberg had still in his pupils, a fixed structure which allowed them a perfect kind of freedom, which would come and go. But Schoenberg also selected a view pupils to learn the inner secrets of what he called the method of 12 tones related only to one another. In this world, which had mystical significance, each note was sounded once per 12 note. Now in this structure, once each had been sounded out, the next structure began. It might begin with the same note. Or it might be any one of the 12 notes, though once it's started, it went along and sounded out the same notes. For example, let's say the first note was C, and the second note was E. once this note had been sound out, then another would begin, but if it started on E – for example – then note C would be the last note sounded. Or it might not be if notes were being sounded in inversion, retrograde, or some combination of notes.

This discipline had rules which they were inventing as they went along. Schoenberg made many mistakes, that was his gift; Webern made no such mistakes, and is pieces reflected back on Palestrina, only with 12 notes. But with Schoenberg and Webern there was a crude high discipline; with Schoenberg it was the polar regions which bit in. in actual fact, there was a misguided allegiance to the monarchy, even though Schoenberg was Jewish; and no monarch would completely trust a Jew. It just was not done. In the case of Webern, his anllegiance was to Der Fuehrer, even though that was also forbidden, because Der Fuehrer did not like the music of the second Vienna school. This made no difference to Schoenberg or Berg, but it wrestled Webern almost frightfully. He wanted to be both artistically one of the group of men which were involved with the 12 tone revolution, and politically wanted to be accepted as a good Nazi. Unfortunately, in this world, you can't be both.

But this wasn't on Berg's mind at all. He had a “row”, as it is called in English, and wanted to fill out each possible construction of that row. There was the row, itself, then their was ordering it backwards, and reversed, and both at the same time, and each row starting on the same key. Then ordered by each key. So they are was a myriad of notes which all reflected the major row. It wasn't just repeating the row indefinitely, which if it were repeated would a tuneful experience, even by the standards of 12 tone music.

Each of the myriad of rows which reflected the primary row, were the basis of the peace. One would think that it would be monotonous. And in fact in the hands of most composers, monotonous would be a step up. In fact, many composers tried to write in this way, just to prove they could do it. And then failed, what they did not realize, is it took a special kind of composer, not just a good one, or even just a great one, but one who was bent in this way.

Sitting at his chair, and thinking about driving is Ford motorcar, a model T, up and down the hills and dales, and realizing he should make a waltz to the music, he felt the fact that he wanted to be opening up the piece, in that way that Puccini did, but was having problems. He wanted to reach the major, and then shift to the minor, and then back again. But he saw Schoenberg's face, and heard Schoenberg's voice, and listened to Schoenberg's neurotic figure; which was really his own voice superimposed on Schoenberg. This was because actually, it was up from himself; not really from Schoenberg; that the maniacal; almost frantic – exhortation to maintain the row at all cost. Even Schoenberg didn't do this. So Schoenberg was hard, and even harder then any person was; but he was not fastidious in the way that Berg thought he was. In short, he had a figure which was the worst of Schoenberg and Berg.

And he worshiped this as the God of gods, taking his gift and displaying it; knowing that it was not to be good enough, even by half. It was almost as if he had an episcopal fallow tale attached to his hindquarters. Ripping him from stem to stern; not at all giving him faitour.

I am alone, completely alone. I wonder if my wife knows what was going on between myself and the girl's mother. I certainly hope not, it would be a humiliation beyond all others.

The woods with a giant cottage in them.

- It so lovely here, in here the woods. With high polonaise exculpate nomenclature rushing from my eyes.

What saltarello hold did it have, with Primavera steps along a prismoid trail, which wonders fustigate along the rhododendron dream that he was in. listening very intently to the violin as it wanders through the deep edge brush. it is traditional and traducianism in its ever flowing jasper ware. An enigma would be to unreal, as speckles all aglow danced down from midday morning sun. was a trance dreaming of a dance for the memory of an angel.

- What did I do that was so wrong? what purpose does it serve, what duty does it entail? I must know if when finishing this solace, what is to become of me? the same as the angel?

He looked over at his wife, streaming and with attention paid to her fingernails, he assumed that somehow she knew. the sly look, the grimace dance about her things, would that she knew and would that she say so to his face. but in his gut she would not say so to him.

- What does this power that controls her life condemn me to know, but not see it in her face? what power does it possess when AB and HF would be so aligned, but never embrace.

Hanna, what has become of you? It was a whisper in proper tonality, before being submerged into a distant clanging, but softly, chiming chord.

Memory steals soft as he looks in to his wife's eyes, knowing what she knows about him. Without pleasure, without piteous pleasure he girds his buttocks into the seat cushion, betraying the ludicrous notion that all was new again, and that automobiles could play a part in the monopode eye that was Lulu, his unfinished work for stage.

Crunching, smashing, with purpose, and without, a slighly taken tale of his own device. Addict to emotion, and stilted by a presence that could only be a dry heave. What could the 20th century the without pictures that distorted?

He once again looked over at his wife, burning intently on what she knew, which was already decided in her mind, but she would leave him guessing as to the ornate subterfuge which rolled instead on the tremendous sticking out of the tongue.

Without further applause, without hint of desperation, imagined that tse-tse fly alighted on his significant other. Then to ravish her as he once had done, so long ago in his youth. It was encouraging, and delightful; but also disgusting, as any memory of someone he did not want any more would be.

- Why is the memory of wanting her displaced from actually wanting her?

It was just the beginning of twilight, and all the mimysgrove were rising up through the gladed would and stared at him. It was morning, it was twilight, it was anything but the sun.

- It so lovely here, in here the woods. With high polonaise exculpate nomenclature rushing from my eyes. Thinking about my wife, even though I don't love her. But Something in my fabric wants to be my wife, my lover, everything that pertains to myself. They want to her kisses in to me, and ravish her with gay abandon.

He thought the thought of how it would nestle in to him, and for just a moment, he would respond the way you used to respond. Even though on the other hand, the very thought of it repulsed him.

The reality of the situation was that he would shimmy off these pants, and with a twinkle in his eye, make the kind of advance that was proper in this Viennese standard way of the world. So he looked at his wife, and even if he did not love her, stilted way of the world, made him tip His hat in her direction. And thus a dance not of love but with affection, again to royal in his gut.

- Yes, I would have her, though her mouth discussed me, though there are plenty of women who appeal to me, though I could think of a dozen reasons, why I should want to do anything else.

So took the row and reset it, and then begin to dance the beginning, one step off, and it sounded like a waltz, in proper style, once upon a time, when the music was yet young.

- Pique hainaut, in the C clef. A gargoyle in profile.

- for this terrible year has passed you and your husband will be able to hear, in the form of a score which I shall dedicate to the memory of an angel, that which he words I cannot express.

This he drafted a letter in his mind to the wife and the father, of Manon Gropius, who once upon a time was husband to the dearly beloved Alma, who was why of Mahler before being wife of Werfel. He was intent on the woman he desired, not to possess, but worship from afar, as Brahms had worshipped Clara Schumann.

- I must talk with someone, and confide in him, that the first part of this concerto, depicts the angelic fragments of motion, of the beloved Manon; capturing the graceful movements of a round dance; a picture of the unaffected and dreamlike quality of a Carinthian folk tune.

He noted this, to explain to Willi Reich, when next he was with him. But he did not expect it to be so soon. After the drive, in fact, he got a call. He was in the apartment with which he shared, when ringing ringing ringing came the phone.

• Yes, may I help you?
• Yes, Willi. what can I do for you?
• I suppose. I could stop by the expressive shop, though I was not expecting you so soon. (actually he had welcomed this to gather his thoughts together.)
• Willi, I have some fragments, but it is rather early to tell. Only April in fact, and you know how slowly I work on this.
• Well you know how Beetheven says: replace days with months, comparing an Italian composer, with a Germanic composer. I think I will be done mid-August, at the latest.
• No, I'm sure it will be done by August, or maybe September at the outside.
• Its all jumbled up, but I have a commission from the American violinist, Louis Krasner.
• No, he isn't very good, but that's the point of thing. It will be a fluid expression, and not the simple, but simple enough.

This was all Berg. He was talking to Willi, but Willi was indistinct, and garbled. You had to stretch your ear to its maximum, to realize that it was a male.

Soon he was at the espresso shop, and Willi was with him. The thrum of the simple folk tune was drilling into his ear, but as yet, Willi did not hear it, because, for the moment, it was in his ear alone.

But not for long, though the War that was coming would interact with the music, and interrupt the lyrical counterpoint, and crunching noise from the orchestra.

The conversation was one-sided, because in the view of the Second Vienna School, name they had come up with themselves, after the first Vienna School of the old Masters, though excluding Shubert, who did not quite fit in with their view of history. Remember, it was not the view that many people would take, but they were persistent in taking it.

Not many years afterwards, Willi would copy down what was think, remember, Berg enunciated, and he copied, such was the way of SVS word to God. It was almost, no it was, as if communication flowed exactly one way, from Schoenberg, to his disciples, from his disciples to communicants, from communicants to listeners. And not the other way around. In the view of the disciples, there were two functions: the performers, and the explainers in terms of what was written on the page. And not one word went the other way.

“At the time of this first communication, he, that is Berg, had not realized that the Cantata, “O Ewigkeit...” , would be the ending to the piece, he was still searching for fragments, and he did not realize that 'du Donnerwort' would fit in with the fragments, and properly promenades in his row.” of course was thinking of “ it is enough! Lord if it be thy will, give me rest!” he imagined that the solo violin would join the rest of the violins, and then the violas, “ audibly and visibly” 'in a just a demonstrative manner”. Willi also remembered this lesson from Berg: “ truly, I know go in peace, leaving all my troubles here below. It is enough. It is enough.” the words come from, of course, Bach.

The words were also used by another voice, in another context, describing how Bach mirrored Goedel and Escher.

It is as if Willi opined ( free from the expression and command that came with talking with a disciple) : “Groans and shrill cries for help grow in the, orchestra, to be smothered by the oppressive rhythms of impending ruin”. But then become a prayer from the Master of Harmony.

This, amissed all the clattering and clanging of little cups of espresso, who did not know that a great Violin Concerto was being born.

"In so far as transcription into words is possible at all, the town - a favorite expression of Berg's - of the whole work may be described as follows: delegate andante melodies emerge from rising and falling of the introduction." Willi Reich

It is morning. It is noon. It is everything like the sun.

But now Alban needed to make a personal connection in a very short space of time. he did so at a shot, when Manon died just after he started after some scribbling, but nothing substantial. but Alma was grieving and more than just grieving, it was almost as if she wanted, not to die, but dedicate herself to the memory of, what Alban said was her Angel. and from that moment, the angel was almost a prayer, is a macroscith, something that consumed his entire being. he knew that a personal handler would not be out of the question. so Willi Reich became such a thing. getting books, scores, and hunting down the great Bach corral which the envisioned as the pinnacle of the movement. he did not know what, exactly, he would do with this, but in his mind he knew it was special.

Only then did he Alma if he could dedicate this holy Grail to her daughter. and of course she rapidly accepted the gift. it was at this point, without question, he bashed and berated himself into and orgy of previous submission to one thing: a violin concerto, setting aside Lulu, and it's taunting gymnastics.

At night, when the light was just barely above dim, when his wife was dozing off, he made dozens of sketches of the first row and it's variance. Each one would be a specific theme in what would be a short concerto, as Mendelssohn was, as many had been. He knew that he didn't want to cast what would be a bravure gem which on the stage would be to preen highlights of a master fiddle maker, that just would not do. But neither did he want something dry and cerebral, as was the custom, for at least the feign custom of what would be called the second Vienna School. He wanted it to be tonal. He remembered the, call it fight with Schoenberg, as to stripping and striping, at least the illusion. He remembered making a suggestion of melody and tonality, and wish point Schoenberg went off on how that missed the point, that would be for the underlings to present, Berg would be a different order of composition.

Schoenberg:

- Nien! Nien! It must be new! If you must have a new sense of order and pathos! Why bring in old tonality when there are so many more vistas yet to be explored! What are you? When something new is crossed over in to the void, and you come careening back to the old tonal words as a school child would?

He went on and on in that vein, after all this was Schoenberg. And while his followers lent a certain air about his pronouncements, they were in fact quite rude and pointed.

But Berg submitted, and scratched dozens of attempts. But he also did not submit, and caressed the tonal qualities in his particular row, which he imagined was a sacred figure, like God, or the Mystery.

- I'm sure Schoenberg will like the row, and understand that this is an introduction to the ministries of the tone row. I'm sure that will like it, he has to, you must, I will argue for it, but I must press these tribulations out of my mind. It would not be sacred.

But try as he could, he could not get it quite right, each time just a bit off.

- I'm sure Schoenberg will like the row, and understand that this is an introduction to the ministries of the tone row. I'm sure that will like it, he has to, you must, I will argue for it, but I must press these tribulations out of my mind. It would not be sacred.

So he prattled, cavorted, extorted, and everything else besides. But he also wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.

- I will be juvenal afterwards, but while I writIe the concerto, everything must be perfect.

Then he heard the rustic dance, and new that now he would make a great commotion, and begin the second act. He was ashamed in fact of having written better, it was something crass that he had just done and he was ashamed of it. But even when he crossed out, it was still there, staring at him. No amount of crossing of would ever erase. It could only be written over on top of it, staring once out side the lines. And it mocked him for having written anything so crude, yes that's the word – crude. Crude, rudec, udecr, decru, ercud, rcrud.

So he dropped the solo violin, and almost pianoismo gave the orchestra a ruinous figure to represent the crawling strings and then there was a shrink, but only in his mind, because he had not written yet...