long enough to master such an instrument as this!"

He brought his hand down heavily on the lid of the piano, and glared
at Maurice as if he expected the latter to contradict him. Then,
noisily clearing his throat, he began anew to pace the room.

As Maurice stood waiting for his dismissal, with very varied feelings,
of which, however, a faint pride was uppermost; as he stood waiting,
the door opened, and a girl looked in. She hesitated a moment, then
entered, and going up to Schwarz, asked him something in a low voice.
He nodded an assent, nodded two or three times, and with quite
another face; its hitherto unmoved severity had given way to an
indulgent friendliness. She laid her hat and jacket on the table, and
went to the piano.

Schwarz motioned Maurice to a chair. He sat down almost opposite her.

And now came for him one of those moments in life, which,
unlooked-for, undivined, send before them no promise of being
different, in any way, from the commonplace moments that make up the
balance of our days. No gently graduated steps lead up to them: they
are upon us with the violent abruptness of a streak of lightning, and
like this, they, too, may leave behind them a scarry trace. What such
a moment holds within it, is something which has never existed for us
before, something it has never entered our minds to go out and
seek--the corner of earth, happened on by chance, which comes most near
the Wineland of our dreams; the page, idly perhaps begun, which brings
us a new god; the face of the woman who is to be our fate--but,
whatever it may be, let it once exist for us, and the soul responds
forthwith, catching in blind haste at the dimly missed ideal.