"Maria, this is the reason. You do look so fixed and strange, even while you talk about it, that I think you will do yourself some harm,--that is all; you did not use to look so." "Am I so frightful, then, Carl?" "You are too beautiful, Maria; but your eyes seem to have no sleep in them." "They have not had, and they will not have until I have completed this task the angel set me." "Oh, Maria! you are thinking of the Chevalier." "I was not; I was thinking of St. Cecilia. If the Chevalier had ordered me to make a symphony, I should to everlasting have remained among the dunces." I often, often lament, most sadly, that I am obliged to form her words into a foreign mould, almost at times to fuse them with my own expression; but the words about the angel were exactly her own, and I have often remembered them bitterly. "You will find it very hard to write without any prospect of rehearsal, Maria." "I can condense it, and so try it over; but I am certain of hearing it in my head, and that is enough." "You will not think so still when it is written. How did it first occur to you?" "In a moment, as I tell you, Carl, while the violin tones, hot as stars that are cold in distance, were dropping into my heart. The subjects rose in Alps before me. I both saw and heard them; there were vistas of sound, but no torrents; it was all glacier-like,--death enfolding life." "What shall you call it, Maria?" "No name, Carl. Perhaps I shall give it a name when it shall be really finished; but if it is to be what I expect, no one would remember its name on hearing it." "Is it so beautiful, then, Maria?" "To my fancy, _most_ beautiful, Carl." "That is like the Chevalier." "He has written, and knows what he has written; but I do not believe he has ever felt such satisfaction in any work as I in this." "I think in any one else it would be dreadfully presumptuous,--in you it is ambitious, I believe; but I have no fear about your succeeding." "Thank you, Carl, nor I. Will you stay here with me and help me?" "No, Maria, for you do not want help, and I should think no one could write unless alone. But I will prevent any one else from coming." "No one else will come; but if you care to stay here, Carl, I can write in my room, and you, as you said you have set yourself certain tasks, can work in this one. I am very selfish I am afraid, for I feel pleasantly safe when you are near me. I think, Carl, you must have been a Sunday-child." "No, Maria; I was born upon a Friday, and my mother was in a great fright. Shall you write this evening?" "I must go out and buy some paper." CHAPTER VII.