--
Barber began to sing.
Of what he sang I can give no account. The words seemed to me here and
there to be Greek, but I do not know Greek well, and in such words as I
thought I recognized, his pronunciation was so different from what I had
been taught that I may well have been mistaken.
I was so muddled, and, as it were, transported, that I cannot say even
if he sang well. Criticism did not occur to me; he was there singing and
we were bound to listen. As I try to hear it, now, it was a carefully
trained voice. A sound of harps seemed to accompany the singing; perhaps
the harpists in the orchestra touched their instruments.--
How long did it last? I have no idea. But it did not appear long before
all began to waver. The spell began to break; the power by which he was
compelling us to listen to him was giving out. It was exactly as if
something, a mantle or the like, was falling from Barber.
The absurdity of the whole thing began to dawn on me. There was Barber,
an obscure little Londoner, daring to interrupt a great musical
performance so that the audience might listen to him instead! Probably
because I was the only one on the spot personally acquainted with
Barber, I was perceiving the trick put upon us sooner than the rest of
the audience; but they, too, were becoming a little restless, and it
would not be long ere they fully awoke.
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