"Stevenson_Markheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stevenson Robert Louis)

At last she arrived at the "Carnaval," and those who heard her
declared afterward that they had never listened to a more magnificent
rendering. The tenderness was so restrained; the vigour was so
refined. When the last notes of that spirited "Marche des
Davidsbundler contre les Philistins" had died away, she glanced at
Oswald Everard, who was standing near her almost dazed.

"And now my favourite piece of all," she said; and she at once began
the "Second Novelette," the finest of the eight, but seldom played in
public.

What can one say of the wild rush of the leading theme, and the
pathetic longing of the intermezzo?

. . . The murmuring dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea;

and

The passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through.

What can one say of those vague aspirations and finest thoughts which
possess the very dullest among us when such music as that which the
little girl had chosen catches us and keeps us, if only for a passing
moment, but that moment of the rarest worth and loveliness in our
unlovely lives?

What can one say of the highest music except that, like death, it is
the great leveller: it gathers us all to its tender keeping--and we
rest.

The little girl ceased playing. There was not a sound to be heard; the
magic was still holding her listeners. When at last they had freed
themselves with a sigh, they pressed forward to greet her.

"There is only one person who can play like that," cried the major,
with sudden inspiration--"she is Miss Thyra Flowerdew."

The little girl smiled.

"That is my name," she said, simply; and she slipped out of the room.

The next morning, at an early hour, the bird of passage took her
flight onward, but she was not destined to go off unobserved. Oswald
Everard saw the little figure swinging along the road, and she
overtook her.

"You little wild bird!" he said. "And so this was your great idea--to
have your fun out of us all, and then play to us and make us feel I