It was strange and terrifying.
She was vaguely familiar with the music to which she listened; but there
was in it, under his fingers, an exotic savour that made it harmonious
with all that he had said that afternoon. His memory was indeed
astonishing. He had an infinite tact to know the feeling that occupied
Margaret's heart, and what he chose seemed to be exactly that which at
the moment she imperatively needed. Then he began to play things she did
not know. It was music the like of which she had never heard, barbaric,
with a plaintive weirdness that brought to her fancy the moonlit nights
of desert places, with palm trees mute in the windless air, and tawny
distances. She seemed to know tortuous narrow streets, white houses of
silence with strange moon-shadows, and the glow of yellow light within,
and the tinkling of uncouth instruments, and the acrid scents of Eastern
perfumes. It was like a procession passing through her mind of persons
who were not human, yet existed mysteriously, with a life of vampires.
Mona Lisa and Saint John the Baptist, Bacchus and the mother of Mary,
went with enigmatic motions.
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