"The enemy was before the gates. Heavy guns were thundering in every direction, and shells were hurtling through the air; the people of the town were running, with white faces, into their houses, and the empty streets rang to the tramp of the cavalry patrols that were cantering along through them, and driving, with threats and curses, such of the soldiers as were loitering, or had fallen out of the ranks from any cause, forward into the trenches. But Ludwig sat on, in his back room, sunk and lost in the lovely, glorious vision-world which had opened upon him at his piano. For he had just completed a symphony, in which he had tried to write down, in notes to be seen and read, what he had heard and seen within him; a work which, like Beethoven's colossal ones in that kind, should tell, in heavenly language, of the glorious wonders of that far-off, romantic realm where life is all unspeakable, blissful, longing. Like _his_ marvellous creations, it was to come from that far-off realm, into this little, arid, thirsty world of ours, and, with beautiful, syren-accents, lure away from it those who should list, and give ear to its charming. But the landlady came in and rated him for sitting at his piano in that time of danger and distress; asking him if he meant to stay in his garret and be shot. At first he didn't understand what the woman was talking about, till a fragment of a shell knocked a piece of the roof off, and the broken panes of the window went clattering down upon the floor. Then the landlady ran down-stairs weeping and screaming; and Ludwig, taking his most precious possession, the score of his symphony, under his arm, hastened after her to the cellar. The inhabitants of the house were all assembled there. In an access of liberality very unusual with him, the wine-shop keeper, who occupied the lower story, had 'stood' a dozen or so of his best wine; whilst the women, in fear and trembling, brought numerous tit-bits in their work-baskets. People ate and drank, and quickly passed from their condition of exaltation and excitement to that confidential frame of mind in which neighbour, drawing close to neighbour, seeks, and thinks he finds security; and, so to say, all the petty, artificial _pas_ which we have been taught by conventionality are whelmed and merged in the great colossal waltz-whirl, to which the iron hand of destiny beats the resistless measure. The trouble and danger--the risk to life and limb--were forgotten; cheerful conversation was the order of the day; animated lips uttered brilliant speeches, and fellow-lodgers, who barely touched a hat to each other at ordinary times as they met on the stairs, were seated side by side, confiding to each other their most confidential affairs.