Peter saw the hospital anew that dark afternoon, saw it through
Harmony's eyes. Layer after layer his professional callus fell
away, leaving him quick again. He had lived so long close to the
heart of humanity that he had reduced its throbbing to beats that
might be counted. Now, once more, Peter was back in the early
days, when a heart was not a pump, but a thing that ached or
thrilled or struggled, that loved or hated or yearned.
The orchestra, insisting on sadly sentimental music, was fast
turning festivity into gloom. It played Handel's "Largo"; it
threw its whole soul into the assurance that the world, after
all, was only a poor place, that Heaven was a better. It preached
resignation with every deep vibration of the cello. Harmony
fidgeted.
"How terrible!" she whispered. "To turn their Christmas-Eve into
mourning! Stop them!"
"Stop a German orchestra?"
"They are crying, some of them. Oh, Peter!"
The music came to an end at last. Tears were dried. Followed
recitations, gifts, a speech of thanks from Nurse Elisabet for
the patients. Then--Harmony.
Harmony never remembered afterward what she had played. It was
joyous, she knew, for the whole atmosphere changed. Laughter
came; even the candles burned more cheerfully. When she had
finished, a student in a white coat asked her to play a German
Volkspiel, and roared it out to her accompaniment with much vigor
and humor. The audience joined in, at first timidly, then
lustily.
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