“Perhaps, then,” I suggested, “the law of association may operate again if you take the trouble to walk back and repass the church in the same manner and the same state of mind, as nearly as you can resume them.” “By Jove,” said the doctor, who likes experiments of this kind, “I'll try it. Wait for me here.” I stood at the corner while the doctor briskly retraced his steps. His firmly built, comfortable-looking form passed rapidly away. Within five minutes he was back, a triumphant smile lighting his face. “Success!” he said. “I have it, although whether from chance or as a result of repeating my impression of light falling on a church window I can't say. Certainly, after all these years, the tune is again mine. Listen.” As we proceeded up the street the doctor whistled a few measures composing a rather peculiar melody, expressive, it seemed to me, of unrest. I never forget a tune I have once heard, and this one was soon fixed in my memory. “And the interesting circumstances under which you heard it?” I interrogated. “Surely after the concern I've shown in the matter, you're not going to deprive me of the story that goes with the tune?” “There is no reason why I should. But I hope you will not circulate the melody. It is the music that accompanies a tragedy.” “Indeed? You have written one, then? It must be brief, as there isn't much of the music.” “I refer to a tragedy which actually occurred. Tragedies in real life are not, as a rule, accompanied by music, and, to be accurate, in this case music preceded the tragedy. Ten years ago, when I was living in Paris, apartments adjoining mine were taken by a musician and his wife. His name, as I learned afterward, was Heinrich Spellerberg, and he came from Breslau. The wife, a very young and pretty creature, showed herself, by her attire and manners, to be frivolous and vain, and without having more than the slightest acquaintance with the pair, I soon learned that she had no knowledge of or taste for music. He had married her, I suppose, for her beauty, and had too late discovered the incompatibility of their temperaments. But he loved her passionately and jealously. One day I heard loud words between them, from which I gathered unintentionally that something had aroused his jealousy. She replied with laughter and taunts to his threats. The quarrel ended with her abrupt departure from the room and from the house. “He did not follow her, but sat down at the piano and began to play in the manner of one who improvises. Correcting the melody that first responded to his touch, modifying it at several repetitions, he eventually gave out the form that I have just whistled.