Sitting there, with the open window behind her, she could be seen, and
she knew that she could be seen from over the wall by anybody driving
past in a high dog-cart.
And she played. She played the Chopin Grande Polonaise, or as much of
it as her fingers, tempestuous and inexpert, could clutch and reach.
She played, neither with her hands nor with her brain, but with her
temperament, febrile and frustrate, seeking its outlet in exultant
and violent sound. She fell upon the Erard like some fierce and hungry
thing, tearing from the forlorn, humble instrument a strange and
savage food. She played--with incredible omissions, discords and
distortions, but she played. She flung out her music through the
windows into the night as a signal and an appeal. She played (on the
little worn-out Erard) in ecstasy and expectation, as if something
momentous hung upon her playing. There was joy and triumph and
splendor in the Grande Polonaise; she felt them in her heart and
nerves as a delicate, dangerous tremor, the almost intolerable on
coming of splendor, of triumph and of joy.
And as she played the excitement gathered; it swung in more and more
vehement vibrations; it went warm and flooding through her brain
like wine. All the life of her bloodless body swam there, poised and
thinned, but urgent, aspiring to some great climax of the soul.
VII
The whole house was full of the Chopin Grande Polonaise.
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