Chapter XCIII: Section 3: So all these strange creatures were poking and peering and

smelling about the “Genius”; and meanwhile, there came at intervals faint strains of music from a distant room. At last Lloyd Hartman entered; beautiful, pale and sensitive--a haunted boy, and the most haunting figure that had yet come to Thyrsis’ imagination. Also, it was the hardest piece of work he had ever undertaken; for the character had come to him, not as a formula or a collection of phrases, but as an intuition, a part of his own soul; and he would work out a scene a score of times, finding words to phrase it, and then rejecting them. By what speeches could he give his sense of the gulf that lay between Lloyd and the people about him? For this boy could not cope with them in argument, he would have no mastery of the world of facts. He must be without any touch of sophistication, of cynicism; and yet, when he spoke to them, it must be clear that he knew them for different beings from himself. He would go with them meekly; but one would feel that it was because his path lay in their direction. When the point came that their ways parted, he would go his own way; and just there lay the seed of the tragi-comedy.

The family gathers about him, and he answers their questions. He will wear the kind of tie that his sister prefers, and they may set any date they please for the _musicales_ at home. He hears the “copy” which Moses has prepared for his advertisements; and then he sits, absent-minded, while they talk about him. Music is in his thoughts, and gradually it steals into his aspect and the gestures of his hand. They watch him, and a pall comes over them: until at last the mother exclaims that he makes her nervous, and leads the family off.

Then Miss Arnold is announced--Helena Arnold, who has been recommended as accompanist at the great concert. She is young and beautiful; and the two go into the next room to play, while the professors remain to talk over this new complication.

Prof. von Arne, of course, lays especial emphasis upon the sex-element in psychopathology; he and Reminitsky have talked the subject out many years ago, and adopted a definite course of action. The abnormalities incidental to sex-repression were innumerable, and for the most part destructive; but there could be no question that all the more striking phenomena of the neurosis called “Genius” were greatly increased in their intensity by this means. So, in dealing with his pupils, and especially with a prodigy like young Hartman, Prof. Reminitsky would call into service all the paraphernalia of religious mysticism; teaching his pupil to regard woman as the object of exalted adoration, a being too holy to be attained to even in thought. And now, of course, when the proposed accompanist turns out to be a decidedly alluring young female, it is necessary to take careful heed.

Meanwhile from the distance come bursts of wild music; and at last Helena returns--pale, and deeply agitated. “It is that _concerto!_” she says, and then asks to be excused from talking. Lloyd comes, and stands by the door watching her. When his teacher begins to open business negotiations, he asks him abruptly to leave them alone.

Helena asks, “Who wrote that music?” He tells her a ghastly story of a titan soul who starved in a garret and shot himself, crushed by the mockery of the world.

“I might have saved him!” the boy exclaims. “I was so busy with the music I forgot the man!”

They talk about this epoch-making _concerto_, and how Lloyd means to force it upon the public. “And you shall play it with me!” he exclaims. “You are the first that has ever understood it!”

“I cannot play it!” she protests; to which he answers, “It was like his voice come back from the grave!” And so we see these two souls cast into the crucible together.