"Yes," she said when she had finished, "but you are very much mistaken,
the air is mine, and I have made you believe it was Stradella's."
"It is yours?"
"Yes, and I told you it was by Stradella, in order to see what you would
say of it. I never play my own music, when I happen to compose any; but I
wanted to try it with you, and you see it has succeeded, since you were
deceived."
What a monstrous machine is man! What could be more innocent? A bright
child might have adopted that ruse to surprise his teacher. She laughed
heartily the while, but I felt a strange coldness as though a cloud had
settled on me; my countenance changed.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you ill?"
"It is nothing; play that air again."
While she was playing, I walked up and down the room; I passed my hand
over my forehead as though to brush away the fog, I stamped my foot,
shrugged my shoulders at my own madness; finally, I sat down on a cushion
which had fallen to the floor; she came to me. The more I struggled with
the spirit of darkness which had seized me, the thicker the night that
gathered around my head.
"Verily," I said, "you lie so well? What! that air is yours? Is it
possible you can lie so fluently?"
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
"What is it?" she asked.
Unspeakable anxiety was depicted on her face. Surely she could not
believe me fool enough to reproach her for such a harmless bit of
pleasantry; she did not see anything serious in that sadness which I
felt; but the more trifling the cause, the greater the surprise.
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