ENCHANTMENT

Through the gates so high

From the marshes dark of Ohta

By roads as yet untrodden

And across meadows unmown

Through the sash of night

And beneath the Easter chimes,

Unbidden,

Unbethroted,

Come to me for supper, dear.

ANNA AHMATOVA

There are some fabulous cities yonder.

M. I. LERMONTOV

Martha Mateva, the singer, was afraid of the wet spring. Or maybe she
just wanted people to believe she was afraid. She carefully closed the
windows of her house and wrapped her Orenburg shawl around herself,
but her fears did not keep her from taking a leisurely evening stroll
through the woods by the villa. The drops, still falling from the trees
after the rain had ceased, cheered her up. Looking at the wet toes of
her shoes as if they were some small animals she counselled them
condescendingly:

"You should never go where you don't need to. Better stay on a dry
spot."

Suddenly her frivolous remarks stopped. She heard a dry cracking
noise. In an arbor overgrown with ivy, her own husband, the well
known writer Matyo Matev, a steadfast and non-sentimental man was
leaning on a table and breaking twigs with amazing persistence.

Martha promptly forgot all her whims and wiles, approached quietly
and embraced him.

"What's the matter?"

Matyo gently embraced his wife, pressed his head to her breasts,
caught his breath and replied in an ostensibly ironical tone:

"I am just trying to feel things. Like Flaubert. But nothing seems to
happen."

"And what are the horrible things that you have tried to write down
in this downpour?"

"Do you really want me to read here?" Matyo said tersely but Martha
had already settled by his side.

There was nothing he could to do but cover her with his broad cloak
and start reading:

"Once upon a time there lived a man with an extraordinary head. It
was such a precious head that no one could have dared to set a price
on it. So this man lived unappreciated. Since his head by its
appearance did not differ much from any other, people did not even
suspect how precious it was and so paid no attention to it. The man
was a modest person and did not tell anybody how high the price of
his head actually was. It was enough for him to know this and he kept
it to himself. To tell the truth, however, his teachers had noticed his
unusual head and wondered.

"Oh, my God, what a head!" That was all they had to say. They had no
time to spare for him in particular, because they had so many
students and the man was not rich and famous, and thus merited no
special attention. He did without it. He did everything unassisted.

He was still a student when he invented the perpetual motion machine,
the famous "perpetuum mobile", over which thousands of wise men,
scholars, dreamers and adventurers have racked their brains for
years on end. He invented it, but no one believed him. The professors
laughed, and said:

"That is impossible. That is Utopia. Perpetuum Mobile cannot be
created."

They refused even to look at his drawings.

The man despaired and burnt them. He could not, however, stay idle.
He started writing poems. It shouldn't be forgotten that he was young
and had just fallen in love with a beautiful girl. Regrettably the
girl's head was not worth more than a ripe water-melon. The girl was
a model in a fashion house, who walked around in the newest and
loveliest clothes, posing for photographers, and when journalists
asked her to say something which they could print she usually said
that her profession was a very difficult one and that she had to give
much thought to the special way in which each new dress or gown was
to be presented to the public. In fact, she really thought that this
was thinking. Everyone thinks as best they can. For some, thinking is
easy, for others - hard. The girl thought that she had quite a
responsible job, strutting about in a dress designed and cut by
others, while the man just modestly said: "I've written a poem".

The girl knew nothing at all about poems and though that since he
spoke so modestly about his verses, they were probably bad. She
nevertheless, collected them along with the letters of her other
admirers. That's all. The model had no time to waste on simple people
who wrote God knows what kinds of poems.

The man felt a great pain, but was afraid to show it and he pretended
to laugh even as his heart wept. The girl and all the rest of the
people said:

"What a heartless man!"

They never suspected that his feelings were thousands of times
stronger than their own, because they were accustomed to wear their
feeling pinned to their sleeves, no matter how trivial they were, and
ceaselessly amused or bothered everybody with them.

The man suffered in silence, under the staggering burden of love
unshared and rejected, but nobody ever heard him grumble or
complain.

Having experienced grief and sorrow, the man noticed that many people
in the world were thus afflicted. He then decided to stir up a
rebellion against grief. Idleness was alien to him. He threw all his
powers, knowledge and abilities in an all-out effort to deliver
humanity from grief. He gathered the tortured people around him and
told them that only joy should reign on this world.

But there were those who did not like his words about joy. They
wanted grief and sorrow to reign supreme in this world, because sad
and sorrowful people are easier to rule. They abhorred the very idea
of but a single hour of joy, and dispatched their servants to capture
the man. The man, however, was impossible to catch. His head
constantly bore ideas and plans which threw off his persecutors.

Then those who were determined that there should be no joy decided
to catch him by treachery and set a prize on his head. The prize was
great, so great that the meanest traitors and cowards were tempted
and rushed in a hot chase on his heels.

The man, however, was elusive and undetectable. People readily
sheltered and hid him. The sad people knew the price of joy and
refused to betray its harbinger.

But the prize was very great. It was so great that no traitor or
coward could resist its temptation. And at the same time it was a
very low price for the head of the Man, because his head was
priceless.

He was betrayed. They tied him up and took his head. A head worth
more than the whole of the planet Earth, because there are many
planets like the Earth out there in space, but a head like that of the
Man had never existed. The traitor received his five hundred
thousand gold pieces and went away completely satisfied, while the
invaluable head was buried in the ground so that no one should ever
remember it or be able to say:

"That was a priceless head."

The years passed by.

The girl whom the Man had loved grew old. Younger models replaced
her. They too, believed that their job was a hard and responsible one,
requiring much thought and intelligence. Her admirers forgot her and
stopped sending any more love letters. The only letters she now
received were bills for this and that, because the former girl had
gotten used to leading a merry life. One day. as she was wondering
how to get some money for a new dress (although she was now an old
woman, she still followed the latest fashions unwaveringly) the retired
model came by sheer chance across the poems which the Man with the
precious head had once written to her. She brushed the dust off them
and took them to a publisher. As they read the poems the editors
nearly fainted with joy, and all they could say was:

"Did you write these masterpieces yourself?"

She hesitated for a moment and then modestly said: "Yes, certainly".

And so she started receiving immense fees for somebody else's poems,
and adorned herself with somebody else's fame. But there was still a
tiny drop of conscience left in her, so she decided to erect a
monument at the Man's grave. She went to his grave, but the people to
whom the Man had talked about joy had been there before her. They
had erected a memorial slab with the inscription:

"Here they have buried Joy, here rests the Mind, here the light of
the Universe is hidden. ""

Matev lapsed into silence, and in a fit of mild rage continued breaking
the twigs into smaller and smaller pieces.

"A strange way you have of making yourself feel." said Martha.

"Why don't you tell me if you like the fragment or not?"

Martha shook her head as if wondering whether she should express
approval or rejection of her husband's writings.

Matev raised his voice in despair:

"Please tell me then if you have ever liked any of the stories I have
written!"

"How couldn't I. I like the whole of you, Matyo, or else why would I
remain your wife?" Martha replied with gusto.

Matev grabbed his sheets in indignation. Martha forced him to sit
down and took the sheets in her hands. She looked at the title page
and frowned:

"What kind of dedication is that?"

"It's just a dedication."

"In memory of Alexander S.? You are crazy. Alexander cannot die."

"What do you mean, he can't die?" Matev was puzzled by the assurance
with which Martha uttered her words.

She went on with an even greater conviction in her voice.

"The news agencies have not quoted any really reliable sources.
Alexander is a great scholar and researcher. A scholar can easily
disappear. A scientist who has gone to an almost unexplored country -
also. However, a scholar and researcher bearing the name of Alexander
S. cannot disappear. On top of everything else he is as handsome as
Alessandro Scarlatti.

"Do you mean to say that beautiful people don't die?"

"They may die, but not if they are as beautiful as Alessandro
Scarlatti, of if they are people like Alexander S."

Matev thought it was pointless to argue with his wife over such a sad
issue. Alexander S, a bacteriologist, had gone to study the people and
their diseases in a newly-founded and almost totally unexplored
country. Nothing had been heard of him for the last several months,
until yesterday the radio had quoted reports that some local
commandos had taken his head, shown it in a small settlement, and
then thrown it into the marshes.

Alexander S. had been a close friend of the writer Matev, but had
displayed a strange stubbornness in refusing to be introduced to
Martha. He had been to her concerts and she had seen him: she even
maintained that on a certain occasion a long time ago she had talked
with him under a most extraordinary set of circumstances, but Matev
did not seem to believe her - everything around Martha was
extraordinary even without this story.

Matev grieved deeply over the loss of his friend, but still, he could
not accept the fact that his wife might know more than the news
agencies.

She pulled the rest of his cloak around herself from head to foot and
said:

"You had better go in, and I'll stay here and try to help Alexander."

"If you catch a cold," Matev said threateningly,

"... you'll make me a cup of tea." Martha concluded. "Please go and
don't bother me."

Matev departed, driven away by her impatience. At the end of the lane
he turned around to look at her. She had raised her head as if
straining to hear some sound.

It grew dark and started raining again. Just as he was about to go
and fetch her, Matev heard her voice from afar. A very strange
incantation, like a long drawn-out cry intertwined with incoherent
words broke the quiet and provoked anxious retorts from the night
birds. The strange song ended in a silence as deep as if the whole
forest had shuddered and died.

Matev stood dazed on the veranda and had the feeling of being led
along paths unknown, steeped in haze, infested with moving shadows
and smelling of burnt wood.

Martha emerged from the forest. Wrapped in the dark cloak she looked
like a goddess from the nether-world. She climbed the steps of the
veranda and said:

"It has never even occurred to Alexander that he may be dead."

"Enough of your childish nonsense, Martha. It's time for you to..."

"It's time for me to take some nourishment. I have a long vigil in
front of me. I must take him out of the marshes before nightfall." And
she went on to explain. "The day is just beginning down there where
Alexander is."

Matev chose not to contradict her. He had seen her strange
expression, heard her quickened breathing, so untypical of her, the
singer, who could, all in a breath, sing a whole sentence from a mesa
by Bach. He accommodated her, offered her a cup of her favorite iced
tea and made a further attempt to bring her back within the
boundaries of reason:

"Martha dear, it's very hard for me to speak my mind, but please try
to understand: with your imaginings and groundless beliefs you cannot
distract me and divert my thoughts from Alexander's death."

"Who, me?" Martha condescendingly smiled. "Me, who can make thousands
of people forget who they are and what century they live in? You
underestimate my powers, dear Matyo. Too many things are
subordinated to my will. I have long mastered the power of art. And
what else is art but imposing somebody's great will on others? I start
singing and all bow to the powerful will of Handel, Wagner, Adamowska
or Mozart. To their suggestions I add my own. I also know the
incomprehensible enchantments that lead the way to the human soul."

"You've let yourself be carried away, Martha, you'll start speaking in
verse and rhyme."

"There is a spell in verse and rhyme as well, if only it can reach the
heights of magic and become poetry. There is a poem by Anna
Ahmatova, called "Enchantment". It cannot be really translated, because
it is in fact an enchantment in itself. It is haunted by the visible
image of that enchantress. She is beautiful and threatening. At full
moon she walks across unmown meadows stretching along the banks of
unknown swamps. She calls the man who is not destined for her and
she knows that he will come out of the high gates, and walk untrodden
roads, and come to have supper with her..."

Matev moved restlessly.

"Martha dear, you don't seem to be feeling well. Do you want me to
carry you to your bed?"

"There are people who are feeling worse." She pushed away his hands.
"And why on earth should your Alexander have been doing forbidden
things?"

"Is it forbidden to fight against sickness? And if it is, then what is
permitted, may I ask?"

"You don't understand." Martha closed her eyes wearily. "The whole
world knows that he went there to save the people from the diseases
that have plagued them for millennia. The forbidden act he has
committed is something else: he has violated the taboos of a primitive
tribe. Hence all the confusion. The magician of the tribe has made a
replica of his head in wax to serve as the target of all his
damnations. Luckily, it was this that the commandos found, carried it
around and dumped it into the swamp. Alexander himself, however, is
lost in these same swamps, and the bioenergy emanated by the whole
wild tribe, intended to harass and eventually destroy him, has
gathered so thickly around him that he cannot find his way to the
lakes, to the populated areas.

"If I guess right, you intend to use your willpower from thousands of
kilometers away and pit it against the concentrated bioenergy of the
entire tribe, to crush their hostility and save Alexander, whom you
believe to be alive. Martha dear, I have heard even more fantastic
things from your mouth, I understand your bitterness, and that you
do not want to accept his death as a fact, but I think you have a
fever. Better take some medicines and go to sleep."

Martha rose slowly, like a warrior clad in armour, implacable and awe-
inspiring.

"If I don't take him out of the swamps tonight nobody will ever see
him again. I am not afraid of the distance, or the hostile bioenergy, if
things are as I believe them to be."

Matev patiently waited to hear her beliefs, but she took two shawls
and a hooded velvet mantle from the wardrobe, wrapped them around
herself, picked up an old lantern brought from Ceylon, lit it and
headed for the woods, shielding the flame with her hand. Matev looked
at her translucent palm which made him think of a fiery flower
growing in the darkness.

He knew that it would be useless to try to convince his wife to give
up her weird occupation. He decided to keep awake with her, and if
she did something more than he could bear, to go out and fetch her,
by force if necessary. He concocted a warm potion of wine, honey and
cloves, glanced at the thermal regulator, and phoned their house in
town to see how his son and daughter were copping alone. Boris
complained that his sister was not obeying him, she said that her
brother did not love her anymore, since he did not want to take her
to some party or other. Matev set in motion the full force of his
parental authority, and settled their argument, but when he put down
the receiver he felt so tired that he had to lie down on the sofa for
a while, and promptly fell asleep.

Dreaming, he saw how, through bubbling swamps, the shadow of an
exhausted man was being guided by a luminous hand. The man was
staggering, and with great difficulty was dragging out his feet from
the sticky mud, which seemed to be trying to swallow him up. He
caught desperately at weeds and twigs, crawled shivering with
exhaustion, but went on because the light was beckoning him.

At the break of dawn Matev jumped to his feet and rushed out to look
for Martha. She was not in the villa, nor in the woods. He went all
around the place, shouting and whistling, and returned breathless to
the villa to fetch his shotgun and fire in the air. Matev kept this
shotgun in spite of Martha's objections. She detested hunters. As a
matter of fact he himself had never gone hunting. From time to time
he held competitions for himself alone, shooting at clay pigeons. His
wife regarded this sport as barbaric and Matev was sure that as soon
as she heard his shots she would hurry back home to protest.

But as he entered the hall of his villa he heard a pleasant voice:

"..... from a friendly visit which is regarded as an expression of good
will.

Alexander Soulimski, the eminent scholar, was found off the coast of
lake Olo by a patrol boat. His death had been earlier reported by
several news agencies. The scientist is now receiving medical care.

The long drought that has been devastating the provinces of..."

Matev switched off the radio. He was not interested in the rest of
the news. Especially when he caught sight of his beloved wife. Huddled
in an armchair she slept or was pretending to be asleep. He bent over
her.

"Martha!"

"Well, are you convinced at last?" She said, opening her eyes with an
obvious effort.

"Martha, I have always known that you are an extraordinary woman..."

"But you have not always believed in that." She said in a tired voice.
"Now you can tuck me in to sleep."

This remark cooled off Matev's elation a bit and hurt his feelings.
After taking her to her bed, he somewhat despondently asked to be
put through to Alexander S., though he didn't really believe that this
would so easily occur. But his friend phoned from the other side of
the world even before he was through with his breakfast.

"Will you welcome me? Tonight. I must leave the country immediately.
The plane is ready. Medical personnel? No need of that. Two fresh
plasters, a good supper, a cup of wine with herbs and... wait for me.
I'll be accompanied by the journalists Donnerwald and Voykovich. Them
too? Won't we be too big a crowd for your quiet home? Of course, of
course. Good-bye."

The famous Alexander S. and the journalists arrived at Matev's villa
that same day in time for dinner.

Alexander immediately sat down beneath the portrait of Martha's
favorite composer, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Matev noticed the
striking likeness between the two which was otherwise obscured by
the divine maestro's wig.

Martha did not show up. She declared that she respected the wish of
the scientist not to be introduced to her. Matev regretted the fact
that due to her obstinacy she was deprived of the chance to hear
such interesting things. Alexander told them about unknown
phosphorescent bushes, about night butterflies which sang, about
swamps emitting many-colored foam, about midget volcanos as big as a
Japanese vase... about an inaccessible world, jealously guarded by the
age-old jungle, where there is a town which hasn't been made by the
hand of man, deserted, shining, with buildings of a glass-like
substance which yields under the pressure of a human palm, with
squares paved with the yellowish bones of antediluvian monsters and
cone-shaped towers which tremble in the wind, but no steel, diamond
or laser beam can cut or indent their surface, and that looks like the
bark of a tree overgrown with moss... The city is surrounded with an
invisible fence, emitting sparks, which is practically insurmountable.
The mist rising over the surrounding swamps engulf it in a turbid
blanket. One can hardly catch a clear glimpse of this spellbound place
even from a low-flying chopper. The strangest thing established by
the explorer, however, was that there were no living micro-organisms
inside the sparkling barrier. Everything there was as if sterilized
and then covered with a translucent lid to be preserved for millennia.
When he left the town Alexander realized that he had been cured of
the inflammation of his eyes and of the rash caused by the local
bacteria.

He had wanted to take his party along to the hidden city, but all he
found at the camp were decapitated corpses. It was at that stage that
he felt himself being entangled in a mysterious web which was pulling
him towards his death. He went in a direction different from the one
he had intended to, the ground under his feet sank, and suddenly
someone seemed to be calling him, guiding him, supporting and
encouraging him. He felt the clash of the two forces engaged in a
bitter struggle, felt dazed by the mists rising from the swamps and
had the vision of a wonderful woman dressed in green clothes.

"With a white shawl and a hood on her head, holding a lantern in her
left hand." Added Matev with a sigh.

Alexander paled and after a moment of silence replied:

"Yes, you know who the woman is. You may hate me, but that will not
stop me from loving her."

Matev looked at him with sympathy.

"You are not to blame for this. Here you are, alive, and you owe it to
her. Martha can influence the people who love her. She can guide them
out of any danger..."

The two journalists were listening with bewilderment. Donnerwald even
touched his ears, as if to make sure that they were in their proper
position and could hear rightly.

"This has happened to me on a previous occasion," Alexander admitted
with a sad smile. "She came to me when I was on the Ellerean plateau.
She asked the helicopter pilot to stop by our camp. She found me and
told me something that I did not believe at first. I had spent weeks
wandering around that wilderness trying to find the natives,
threatened by a disease that could mow them down to the last man,
but I didn't find a trace of a foot print. Then Martha came along and
asked me to hide myself and started to sing. I was carried away by
the force in her voice and did not quite understand where these
people came from, the people I had been looking for. They sat in a
circle round her, swaying like flowers in the wind and their lips
moved as if they were drinking Martha's song, and then - uttering
her words which they did not understand (although she later
maintained that she had talked with them), they trusted me enough to
let me give them the necessary shots and even let me cut off tufts of
their hair for further examination. Martha broke her malachite
necklace, gave them the stones, offered them menthol candies and flew
away, without explaining, without bidding me farewell..."

"What kind of explanations did you need?" Asked Matev. "She felt that
her job was finished and left."

"I hope you are speaking seriously," Donnerwald broke in uncertainly.

The unceremonious Voykovich cursed all present and said:

"Shit, brothers. Damn all that rubbish! There can be no such woman.
You are inventing things."

Martha's laughter came from the upper end of the staircase.

"Who, me? Let me see the man who is going to invent me".

The self-assured Voykovich stared in astonishment with a gaping
mouth. He squinted with his eyes to get a closer view of that
"creature from another world", as he later dubbed her.

Martha came down the stairs and extended her hand to Alexander
without saying a word. As he didn't take it in his embarrassment, she
sat down in the chair next to him, showing no sign of being slighted.
He sat down on the floor, embraced her knees, and when the silence
became too tense, he turned to Matev:

"I know you don't like it but this is the way in which the ancient
Greeks, and even their gods expressed reverence and veneration."

Martha sat down on the floor by his side:

"Well then, let us express our mutual respect and admiration."

"There is nothing I can do to adequately express my gratitude. You
saved my life." Alexander declared.

She asked him to get up.

"You were saved by the harmony you carry in yourself. You are a
complete personality. You pursue your goals confidently and
persistently. For me it is a pleasure to help people like you..." The
solemn tone of her voice suddenly dropped low: "and not some muddling
misfits."

Voykovich was inspired by this turn of events.

"Gosh, Madame, I had heard you were a miracle but I didn't believe it.
I'll never forget you, never in my life, but please tell me, do you
really do such things?"

Martha laughed like a child then seriously answered:

"If you do not believe me, what does it matter whether it is true or
not."

"Intelligent as well, to top it all!" Voykovich uttered in a
broken-hearted voice and turned to Matev:

"Like it or not, brother, but I too, am going to fall in love with her."

"Do fall in love!" Matev generously consented. "I've gotten used to
that. The main thing is that she is in love with me."

"And what matters to me is that if sometime, somewhere, I happen to
lose my bearings, Mrs. Martha will rush to my rescue."

"Don't ever count on that," she said. "You seem to be very fond of
yourself. I help only those who are more concerned with the fate of
others. There was a time when the Indians glorified their chiefs with
the title "A man who cares for the people", that is, a man who really
cares and feels responsible for the destiny of others. Please, don't
expect me to rush to save the life of an idle loafer or a wastrel."

"What loafer?" Donnerwald eagerly asked.

"But why aren't you eating and drinking?" Martha replied. "You are
hungry and thirsty," and she pushed the glass and plate in his
direction.

"No, I'm not," he said hesitantly.

"You're not?" Martha smiled condescendingly. "Dear sir, even as I sit
here, I can feel an old woman in Alaska who is crying because she has
lost her last tooth. When they cut bushes in New Zealand, I have the
feeling they are cutting my own hair, and you, sitting next to me, are
trying to convince me that you are not thirsty. When I was younger I
knew I had the power to suggest, and was proud of being able to
transmit my thoughts and will, to influence people. Much later I
realized this was selfish and I started learning to "receive", to feel
other people. I was glad to possess such powers, until one day I
arrived at the bitter conclusion that I wasn't the most precious
denizen of our planet, that every human being is a unique product of
Nature and is worthy of admiration." As an afterthought Martha
added, kidding them: "This may not be quite true, but let's take it for
granted. Is it not enough that I think not only of myself, and try to
help the good people at least? We are all neighbors, aren't we, and we
live on the same planet. Well, what have I said that is so strange,
that you, four grown-up men should keep staring at me like that.
Please help yourselves, eat and drink, and I'll go to bandage that tree
over there which Matyo shot."

The four men exchanged dazed glances, as if they had just woken from
sleep.

"Martha dear, what a person you are!" Matev began.

"I am not a person, I am a prima-donna, Matyo!"

"Teasing me again!"

"You are my husband for me to tease!" She said unperturbably and
went to the door.

Voykovich made an attempt to defend Matev, Alexander begged Martha
not to leave, Donnerwald tried to reestablish the good tone of the
conversation, and as all of them were talking simultaneously Martha
closed her ears, and took her hands off only when silence was
restored. She walked to the grand piano and sang an aria by
Alessandro Scarlatti. Before that she announced that her performance
was dedicated to Alexander S., just like her husband had dedicated to
him his latest literary work.

When Martha had finished her song the indefatigable Voykovich wanted
to know more about Matev's work, and the latter was compelled to
read it. Silence fell over the party as his reading drew to a close.
Martha looked at him sharply and asked:

"Would you be kind enough to add something from me? I shall try to
compose it in your own style."

Pacing to and fro before her astounded guests she dictated the
following text to her husband:

"The aged model thought hard, as hard as the limited faculties of her
brain permitted, and concluded that some of the Man's unknown
writings lay probably buried with him under the slab. (He had once
had a lead casket in which he kept his manuscripts). She ordered the
slab lifted.

The cool smell of mould came from the grave. Then someone heaved a
sigh and the Man rose from the darkness. He didn't even blink in the
light.

He took the mirror which had rolled out of the handbag of the
unconscious woman, looked at himself, steadied his head on his
shoulders, closed the lead casket where something shone and
sputtered, and stretched his shoulders. Then, with his casket under
one arm, the Man climbed out of the grave and stopped to read the
epitaph on the slab. "Here they have buried Joy, here rests the Mind,
here the light of the Universe is hidden."

He smiled.

The Man glanced at the grave diggers, scared to death as they were,
and said to himself:

"Poor chaps. Has it ever crossed their minds that joy cannot be
buried, reason cannot be put to rest, and that the light of the
Universe can never be extinguished?"

"Madame, is it you who write your husband's books?" Voykovich asked.

"Of course I do not!" Martha retorted indignantly. "So long as there is
music in this world, the art of the highest possible order... And with
the perfection reached by men of genius."

She sat at the grand piano again and began to sing:

"Recall my words,

Euridice, Euridice..."

"Why is she singing that song?" Voykovich wondered.

"Maybe, because like Orpheus, she led me out of the netherworld." Said
Alexander.

"And how did she bribe the inexorable gods?" Exclaimed Donnerwald
with sadness and with a note of jealousy in his voice.

"Perhaps she sang to them" Alexander replied.

Matev sighed.

"She not only sang to them. She cast a spell on them through the
power of her art. And here you are, "unbidden, unbethroted", here you
are at supper with us." 