She had learned much, much from from the adventure of Bad Gastein, which she could not have learned alone. She learned that one must not calculate too much but seize the pleasure and the beauty of the moment. To see inside many things, that you could not live at all by mind or by will alone,no matter how clever you were. Certainly now she could see what magnificence lay inside the splendorous chords of "Ein feste Burg".
It had been raining and the reflections of the yellow street lights were drowned in the pools of water gathered on the uneven surfaces of the asphalt. Far off down the river the lonely whistle of a freighter sounded through the fog, and suddenly a strange, unearthly feeling of gratitude for life burst forth into her heart. There were no words or even thoughts which could translate what she felt. Only through music perhaps could it be clarified and given form.
Perhaps in the end it is only death that brings a complete understanding, for in that moment it had seemed to her that she understood all that had ever happened to her, that all the tragedy, all the pleasure, all the satisfaction, the suffering had come together like a single superb tapestry in which every fragment, every line had a meaning and a beauty related to the whole
Louis Bromfiled
Mrs. Parkington
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