At first the sounds failed to touch the mother. They were
incomprehensible to her, nothing but a ringing chaos. Her ear
could not gather a melody from the intricate mass of notes. Half
asleep she looked at Nikolay sitting with his feet crossed under
him at the other end of the long sofa, and at the severe profile
of Sofya with her head enveloped in a mass of golden hair. The
sun shone into the room. A single ray, trembling pensively, at
first lighted up her hair and shoulder, then settled upon the keys
of the piano, and quivered under the pressure of her fingers. The
branches of the acacia rocked to and fro outside the window. The
room became music-filled, and unawares to her, the mother's heart
was stirred. Three notes of nearly the same pitch, resonant as the
voice of Fedya Mazin, sparkled in the stream of sounds, like three
silvery fish in a brook. At times another note united with these
in a simple song, which enfolded the heart in a kind yet sad caress.
She began to watch for them, to await their warble, and she heard
only their music, distinguished from the tumultuous chaos of sound,
to which her ears gradually became deaf.
And for some reason there rose before her out of the obscure depths
of her past, wrongs long forgotten.
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