The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson Part 25

Bill smiled. Mike was good; the answer provided a quick summary of the situation, bullet points, potential headlines: "Life on Mars Proves Life Is Common in the Universe." Which wasn't exactly true, but there was no winning the soundbite game.

Bill left the room and crossed the little plaza, then entered the big building forming the north flank of the compound. Upstairs the little offices and cubicles all had their doors open and portable TVs on, all tuned to the press conference just a hundred yards away; there was a holiday atmosphere, including streamers and balloons, but Bill couldn't feel it somehow. There on the screens under the CNN logo his friends were being played up as heroes, Young Devoted Rocket Scientists replacing astronauts, as the exploration of Mars proceeded robotically-silly, but very much preferable to the situation when things went wrong, when they were portrayed as Harried Geek Rocket Scientists not quite up to the task, the extremely important (though underfunded) task of teleoperating the exploration of the cosmos from their desks. They had played both roles several times at JPL, and had come to understand that for the media and perhaps the public there was no middle ground, no recognition that they were just people doing their jobs, difficult but interesting jobs in difficult but not intolerable circ.u.mstances. No, for the world they were a biannual nine-hours' wonder, either nerdy heroes or nerdy goats, and the next day forgotten.

That was just the way it was, and not what was bothering Bill. He felt at loose ends. Mission accomplished, his TO DO list almost empty; it left him feeling somewhat empty; but that was not it either. He still had phone and e-mail media questions waiting, and he worked through those on automatic pilot, his answers honed by the previous week's work. The lander had drilled down and secured a soil sample from under the sands at the mouth of Shalbatana Vallis, where thermal sensors had detected heat from a volcanic vent, which meant the permafrost ice in that region had liquid percolations in it. The sample had been placed in a metal sphere which had been hermetically sealed and boosted to Martian orbit. After a rendezvous with an orbiter it had been flown back to Earth and been released in such a manner that it had dropped into Earth's atmosphere without orbiting at all, and slammed into Utah's Dugway Proving Grounds a mere ten yards from its target. An artificial meteorite, yes. No, the ball could not have broken on impact, it had been engineered for that impact, indeed could have withstood striking a sidewalk or a wall of steel, and had been recovered intact in the little crater it had made-recovered by robot and flown robotically to Johnson s.p.a.ce Center in Houston, where it had been placed inside hermetically sealed chambers in sealed labs in sealed buildings before being opened, everything having been designed for just this purpose. No, they did not need to sterilize Dugway, or all of Utah, they did not need to nuke Houston (not to kill Martian bacteria anyway), and all was well; the alien life was safely locked away and could not get out. People were safe.

Bill answered many such questions, feeling that there were far too many people who badly needed a better education in risk a.s.sessment. They got in their cars and drove on freeways, smoking cigarettes and holding high-energy radio transmitters against their heads, in order to get to newsrooms where they were greatly concerned to find out if they were in danger from microbacteria locked away behind triple hermetic seals in Houston. By the time Bill broke for lunch he was feeling more depressed than irritated. People were ignorant, short-sighted, poorly educated, fearful, superst.i.tious; deeply meshed in magical thinking of all kinds. And yet that too was not really what was bothering him.

Mike was in the cafeteria, hungrily downing his lunchtime array of flavonoids and antioxidants, and Bill joined him, feeling cheered. Mike was giving a low-voiced recap of the morning's press conference (many journalists were in the JPL cafeteria on guest pa.s.ses). "What is the meaning of life?" Mike whispered urgently, "it means metabolism, it means hunger at lunchtime, please G.o.d G.o.d let us eat, that's what it means." Then the TVs overhead began to show the press conference from Houston, and like everyone else they watched and listened to the tiny figures on the screen. The exobiologists at Johnson s.p.a.ce Center were making their initial report: the Martian bacteria were around one hundred nanometers long, bigger than the fossil nan.o.bacteria tentatively identified in ALH 84001, but smaller than most Terran bacteria; they were single-celled, they contained proteins, ribosomes, DNA strands composed of base pairs of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. let us eat, that's what it means." Then the TVs overhead began to show the press conference from Houston, and like everyone else they watched and listened to the tiny figures on the screen. The exobiologists at Johnson s.p.a.ce Center were making their initial report: the Martian bacteria were around one hundred nanometers long, bigger than the fossil nan.o.bacteria tentatively identified in ALH 84001, but smaller than most Terran bacteria; they were single-celled, they contained proteins, ribosomes, DNA strands composed of base pairs of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine.

"Cousins," Mike declared.

The DNA resembled certain Terran organisms like the Columbia Bas.e.m.e.nt Archaea Methanospirillum jacobii, Methanospirillum jacobii, thus possibly they were the descendant of a common ancestor. thus possibly they were the descendant of a common ancestor.

"Cousins!"

Very possibly mitochondrial DNA a.n.a.lysis would reveal when the split had happened. "Separated at birth," one of the Johnson scientists offered, to laughter. They were just like the JPL scientists in their on-screen performances. Spontaneous generation versus panspermia, frequent transpermia between Earth and Mars; all these concepts poured out in a half-digested rush, and people would still be calling for the nuclear destruction of Houston and Utah in order to save the world from alien infection, from andromeda strains, from fictional infections-infictions, as Mike said with a grin.

The Johnson scientists nattered on solemnly, happy still to be in the limelight; it had been an oddity of NASA policy to place the Mars effort so entirely at JPL, in effect concentrating one of the major endeavors of human history into one small university lab, with many competing labs out there like baby birds in the federal nest, ready to peck JPL's eyes out if given the chance. Now the exobiology teams at Johnson and Ames were finally involved, and it was no longer just JPL's show, although they were still headquarters and had engineered the sample-return operation just as they had all the previous Martian landers. The diffusion of the project was a relief of course, but could also be seen as a disappointment-the end of an era. But now, watching the TV, Bill could tell that wasn't what was bothering him either.

Mike returned with Bill and Na.s.sim to their offices, and they continued to watch the Johnson press conference on a desk TV. Apparently the sample contained more than one species, perhaps as many as five, maybe more. They just didn't know yet. They thought they could keep them all alive in Mars jars, but weren't sure. They were sure that they had the organisms contained, and that there was no danger.

Someone asked about ramifications for the human exploration of Mars, and the answers were scattered. "Very severely problematized," someone said; it would be a matter for discussion at the very highest levels, NASA of course but also NSF, the National Academy of Sciences, the International Astronomical Union, various UN bodies-in short, the scientific government of the world.

Mike laughed. "The human mission people must be freaking out."

Na.s.sim nodded. "The Ad Martem Club has already declared that these things are only bacteria, like bathroom sc.u.m, we kill billions of them every day, they're no impediment to us conquering Mars."

"They can't be serious."

"They are serious, but crazy. We won't be setting foot there for a very long time. If ever."

Suddenly Bill understood. "That would be sad," he said. "I'm a humans-to-Mars guy myself."

Mike grinned and shook his head. "You better not be in too much of a hurry."

Bill went back into his office. He cleaned up a little, then called Eleanor's office, wanting to talk to her, wanting to say, We did it, the mission is a success and the dream has therefore been shattered, but she wasn't in. He left a message that he would be home around the usual time, then concentrated on his TO DO list, no longer adding things to the bottom faster than he took them off at the top, trying to occupy his mind but failing. The realization was sinking in that he had always thought that their work was about going to Mars, about making a better world there; this was how he had justified everything about his life, the killing hours of the job, the looks on his family's faces, Eleanor's fully sympathetic but disappointed, frustrated that it had turned out this way, the two of them caught despite their best efforts in a kind of 1950s marriage, the husband gone all day every day-except of course that Eleanor worked long hours too, so that their kids had always been daycare and after-school care kids, all day every weekday. Once Bill had dropped Joe, their younger one, off at daycare on a Monday morning, and looking back in through the window he had seen an expression on the boy's face of abandonment and stoic solitude, of facing another ten hours at the same old place, to be gotten through somehow like everyone else, a look which on the face of a three-year-old had pierced Bill to the heart. And all that, all he had done, all the time he had put in, all those days and years, had been so that one day humans would inhabit Mars and make a decent civilization at last; his whole life burned in a cubicle because the start of this great project was so tenuous, because so few people believed or understood, so that it was down to them, one little lab trying its best to execute the "faster better cheaper" plan which contained within it (as they often pointed out) a contradiction of the second law of thermodynamics among other problems, a plan that they knew could only really achieve two out of the three qualities in any real-world combination, but making the attempt anyway, finding that the only true "cheaper" involved was the cost of their own labor and the quality of their own lives, rocket scientists running like squirrels in cages to make the inhabitation of Mars a reality-a project which only the future Martians of some distant century would truly appreciate and honor. Except now there weren't going to be any future Martians.

Then it was after six, and he was out in the late summer haze with Mike and Na.s.sim, carpooling home. They got on the 210 freeway and rolled along quite nicely until the carpool lane stalled with all the rest, because of the intersection of 210 and 110; and then they were into stop-and-go like everyone else, the long lines of cars brake-lighting forward in that accordion pattern of acceleration and deceleration so familiar to them all. The average speed on the L.A. freeway system was now eleven miles per hour, low enough to make them and many other Angelenos try the surface streets instead, but Na.s.sim's computer modeling and their empirical trials had made it clear that for any drive over five miles long the clogged freeways were still faster than the clogged streets.

"Well, another red letter day," Mike announced, and pulled a bottle of Scotch from his daypack. He snapped open the cap and took a swig, then pa.s.sed the bottle to Bill and Na.s.sim. This was something he did on ceremonial occasions, after all the great JPL successes or disasters, and though both Bill and Na.s.sim found it alarming, they did not refuse quick pulls. Mike took another one before twisting the cap very tightly on the bottle and stuffing it back inside his daypack, actions which appeared to give him the feeling he had retuned the bottle to a legally sealed state. Bill and Na.s.sim had mocked him for this belief before, and now Na.s.sim said, "Why don't you just carry a little soldering iron with you so you can reseal it properly."

"Ha ha."

"Or adopt the NASA solution," Bill said, "take your swigs and then throw the bottle overboard."

"Ha ha, now don't be biting the hand that feeds you."

"That's the hand people always bite."

Mike stared at him. "You're not happy about this big discovery, are you, Bill."

"No!" Bill said, sitting there with his foot on the brake. "No! I always thought we were the, the bringing of the inhabitation of Mars. I thought that people would go on to live there, and terraform the planet, you know, red green and blue-establish a whole world world there, a second strand of history, and we would always be back at the start of it all. And now these d.a.m.n bacteria are there already, and we may never land there at all. We'll stay here and leave Mars to the Martians, the bacterial Martians." there, a second strand of history, and we would always be back at the start of it all. And now these d.a.m.n bacteria are there already, and we may never land there at all. We'll stay here and leave Mars to the Martians, the bacterial Martians."

"The little red natives."

"And so we're at the start of nothing! We're the start of a dead end."

"Balderdash," Mike said. And Bill's spirits rose a bit; he felt a glow like the Scotch running through him; he may have slaved away in a cubicle burning ten years of his life on the start of a dead-end project, a project that would never be enacted, but at least he had been able to work on it with people like these, people like brothers to him now after all the years, brilliant weird guys who would use the word "balderdash" in conversation in all seriousness; Mike who read Victorian boys' literature for his entertainment, who was as funny as they got; who had not even in the slightest way appeared on TV while playing the Earnest Rocket Scientist, playing a stupid role created by the media's questions and expectations, all them playing their stupid roles in precisely the stupid soap opera that Bill had dreamed they were going to escape someday, What does life mean mean to you, Dr. Labcoat, what does this discovery to you, Dr. Labcoat, what does this discovery mean, mean, Well, it means we have burned up our lives on a dead-end project. "What do you mean balderdash!" Bill exclaimed. "They'll make Mars a nature preserve, a bacterial nature preserve, for G.o.d's sake! No one will risk even Well, it means we have burned up our lives on a dead-end project. "What do you mean balderdash!" Bill exclaimed. "They'll make Mars a nature preserve, a bacterial nature preserve, for G.o.d's sake! No one will risk even landing landing there, much less terraforming the place!" there, much less terraforming the place!"

"Sure they will," Mike said. "People will go there. Eventually. They'll settle, they'll terraform-just like you've been dreaming. It might take longer than you were thinking, but you were never going to be one of the ones going anyway, so what's the rush? It'll happen."

"I don't think so," Bill said darkly.

"Sure it will. Whichever way it happens it'll happen.""Oh thank you! Thank you very much! Whichever way it happens it'll happen? That's so very helpful!""Not your most testable hypothesis," Na.s.sim noted.

Mike grinned. "You don't have to test it, it's that good."

Bill laughed harshly. "Too bad you didn't tell the reporter that! Whatever happens will happen! This discovery means whatever it means!" and then they were all cackling, "This discovery means that there's life on Mars!" "This discovery means whatever you want it to mean!" "That's how meaning always means!"

Their mirth subsided. They were still stuck in stop-and-go traffic, in the rows of red blinks on the vast viaduct slashing through the city, under a sour-milk sky.

"Well, s.h.i.t," Mike said, waving at the view. "We'll just have to terraform Earth instead."

Prometheus Unbound, At Last

Please append your report here

This novel postulates that science is an ongoing utopian proto-political experiment poorly theorized as such and lacking a paradigm within which to exert power in human affairs commensurate with its actual productive capacity and life-maintenance criticality. Scientists are first seen marginalized from macro-decision-making in a backstory (written in the style of a Cold War thriller) in which agents sequester science by convincing Truman et al et al. that science's metastasizing wartime ability to create new technologies crucial to victory (radar, penicillin, atom bomb, etc.) might const.i.tute a threat to postwar civilian-corporate control of society.

Scientists, subsequently inoperative in surplus value investment and allocation decisions, produce goods and services unconscious of themselves as a group and individually willing to work within the existing hierarchical extractive non-sustainable system for $100,00050,000 annually plus pension, stock options and a light teaching load. (This chapter is in the form of a zombie novel, highly amusing.) Then the scientifically augmented human population catastrophically overshoots the long-term carrying capacity of the planet. Scientists in their various toothless non-decision-making organizations conclude that the anthropogenically initiated climate change, and ma.s.s extinction event a.s.sociated with it, probably threatens their descendants' welfare, and thus scientists' own evolutionary fitness. The sleepers awake.

Meanwhile a certain proportion of humanity makes a cost-benefit a.n.a.lysis comparing fifteen years' work learning a science with saying "I believe" and through group political action controlling more calories per capita than scientists do, also more power over funding and rather more offspring. Many conclude faith-based parasitism on science less costly to the individual, so more adaptive. (Vampires living off zombies, guns brandished, chases by night: the novel gets pretty lurid at this point.) Then at a modelling conference a discussion springs up concerning Hamilton's rule, which states that altruism should evolve whenever the cost to the giver, C C, is less than the fitness benefits, B B, obtained by helping another individual who is related by r r, with r r being calculated as the proportion of genes these two individuals share by common descent (as in Hrdy, 1999): being calculated as the proportion of genes these two individuals share by common descent (as in Hrdy, 1999): C Br C Br.

A geneticist at the conference points out that as humans share 60% of their genes with fruitflies, and all eukaryotes share 938 core genes, r r is probably always higher than heretofore calculated. An ecologist mentions the famous is probably always higher than heretofore calculated. An ecologist mentions the famous Nature Nature article in which the benefits provided by the biosphere to humans were estimated at $33 trillion a year (R. Costanza article in which the benefits provided by the biosphere to humans were estimated at $33 trillion a year (R. Costanza et al et al. Nature Nature 387, 253260; 1997). An economist suggests that the cost for individual scientists wanting to maintain these benefits could be conceptualized in the form of a mutual hedge fund, with initial investment set for the sake of discussion at $1,000 per scientist. 387, 253260; 1997). An economist suggests that the cost for individual scientists wanting to maintain these benefits could be conceptualized in the form of a mutual hedge fund, with initial investment set for the sake of discussion at $1,000 per scientist.

Comic scene here as modellers debate the numbers, with a biologist pointing out that the benefit of life to every living organism could justifiably be defined as infinity, considerably altering equation's results. (Shouting, fights, saloon demolished in Wild West manner.) Conference attendees conclude altruism is probably warranted, and hedge fund is established. (Readers of novel wishing to pre-invest are directed to a website http://www.sciencemutual.net.) Partic.i.p.ating scientists then vote to establish a board; a model const.i.tution for all governments to adopt; a policy-research inst.i.tute tasked with forming a political platform; and a lobbying firm. All scientific organizations are urged to join the fund. Fund's legal team goes to World Court to claim compensation for all future biospheric damage, to be paid into the fund by those wreaking the damage and the governments allowing it.

Many meetings follow, no doubt explaining the presence in this chapter of most of the novel's s.e.x scenes. Author seemingly familiar with and perhaps overfond of the bon.o.bo literature. Strenuous attempts to maximize reproductive success in Davos, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, etc.

Novel's style shifts to amalgam of legal thriller and tolkienesque high fantasy as scientists take power from corporate military-industrial global elite. A spinradian strategic opacity here obscures the actual mechanism that would allow this to work in the real world, said opacity created by deployment of complicated syntax, phrases low in semantic content ("information cascade"), especially active stage business (man runs through with hair on fire), explosions, car chases, and reinvocation of Very Big Numbers-in this case Science Mutual's potential a.s.sets if World Court returns positive judgment, after which subsequent chapter (with toll-free number as epigraph!) emerges in newly utopian s.p.a.ce, looking plausible to those still suspended in coleridgean willed non-disbelief.

Speed of narration accelerates. Science Mutual arranges winners in all elections everywhere. Hedge fund continues to grow. Scientific organizations form international supra-organization. Black helicopters proliferate. Entire population decides to follow new scientific guidelines indicating that reproductive fitness is maximal the closer behaviour conforms to palaeolithic norms, this being the lifestyle that tripled brain size in only 1.2 million years. Widespread uptake of this behavioural set augmented by appropriate technology (especially dentistry) reduces global resource demand by an order of magnitude despite demographic surge to UN-predicted mid-range peak of ten billion humans. A rationally balanced positive feedback loop into maximized universal fitness obtains. (Novel ends with standard finale, singing, dancing, reproducing. All Terran organisms live optimally ever after.)Please give your recommendation Reader recommends acceptance for publication, but suggests that the apparent size of the text's strategic opacity be reduced to three seconds of arc or less. Publisher should take steps to secure domain name sciencemutual.com. (Also, more car chases.)

The Timpanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, 1942

First movement: Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso The first movement is about death. It begins with a little joke, that's Beethoven for you-the most terrifying music ever, yet he begins by making it sound like the horn players are warming up their lips and mouthpieces, the strings tuning their note against the oboe, the flashier ones throwing in a fifth below as if to test even the harmonics-and then the whole thing falls over a cliff into something urgent and loud, jagged and dark. The timpanist got to hammer this sudden fall home with the most violent entrance of his life. The stroke of doom, the bad news-he hit his D and A drums like the sledgehammer of Death, killing everything. A complete Gotterdammerung in sixteen notes; the perfect music for the evening, in other words. Because they were all doomed.

Furtw.a.n.gler knew it of course, none better; he had marched up to the podium as if to the gallows, and begun conducting the instant he got there, as he always did now-but this time it was different, the grim look on his face unprecedented and frightening. Behind him, out among the packed audience filling the big hall of the Philharmonie, the timpanist could see any number of uniformed men with eyepatches, arms in slings, bandaged noses, missing legs. In his peripheral vision he could see the giant swastikas draped to each side of the stage, and there was another one above and behind them. The n.a.z.i officials sat in the front row, Goebbels chewing his underlip like a rabbit. It was best not to look at them. During the short rests between his a.s.saults, and throughout the second theme, as the counter-tune kept trying to tiptoe out of the room, the timpanist locked his gaze on their conductor; nevertheless he still saw the bandaged men, also a scattering of soberly dressed women, their faces twisted with pity, dread, longing, regret. When the return of the first theme caught them all he brought his sticks down harder than ever, pounding out their doom.

Not that this music was only about death. The first movement of Beethoven's Ninth was an entire world in itself, one relearned this every time one traversed it; its seventeen or eighteen minutes expanded into a Greek tragedy that felt like it filled years. There were shifts, respites, restless searches, kindly moments... In certain bars the woodwinds followed a pause with a little cantabile, a pulse of life, and the strings carried it away in a nervous interrogation, asking Can this sweetness exist? Can we get away with such delicate play? Can we leave all the rest of the world behind? Only to be answered NO, the little tune smashed down in another flood of doom, the dark plunge, the knell in the heart of the first theme, its falling thirds and fifths like tripping down cliffs at the edge of an abyss. Struggle away as hard as they could, they kept falling back. This was not like the famous first theme of the Fifth, which was a very different call, a matter of adversity defied, Fate heraldic, its eight notes quickly elaborated, woven together, lifted up in a shout that was ultimately heroic; yes, the Fifth's first movement was heroic; while the Ninth's was simply death, arriving without any possibility of denial, right there in the great hall of the Philharmonie. April 19, 1942.

And everyone there knew it, everyone who was not a fool, anyway, and in such fundamental things there were very few fools. Perhaps Goebbels was a fool, if he was not a calculating opportunist, or simply mad. But most of the people in the hall knew very well. They had heard the bombers at night, had descended into the Untergrund when the air raid sirens howled, had stood in the dark listening as the whole world above them became a throbbing band of kettle drums. They saw the maimed boys sitting among them. They read the newspapers, they listened to the radio, they talked in kitchens late at night with friends they trusted. They were Berliners, they knew.Recently the timpanist had discovered that in the extremity of the violent pa.s.sages throughout the middle minutes of the first movement, the long rolls Beethoven had given him to play could be made to sound precisely like the bombers at night overhead, and different kinds of bombers at that, depending on how close to the rim he hit and how fast, so that he could imitate the low grumble of Heinkels struggling for take-off, or the high staccato of de Havillands, or the creamy thrum of Lancasters rushing by on a ma.s.sed run. These engine rolls were punctuated by explosive hits mid-drumhead, like anti-aircraft fire; it was amazingly like. From within his prophetic solitude the deaf old man had apparently heard the deadly future reverberating back to him, had translated it into x x's and tr tr's and sf sf's and fff fff's, and the diagonal crosses through the notes that meant bomber bomber.

Now back to the fateful hammering of the first theme. Here he re-created the sounds of the big guns of the last war. He had fought in that war and heard each kind of gun innumerable times, sometimes in the very rhythms Beethoven now required, sometimes for hours on end. Fifty kilometers of Big Berthas, going off all night long: useful knowledge in this moment. Happily he pounded as hard as he could get away with, or harder. Every person in the hall surely recognized what he was doing.

Of course outside the music they rarely discussed the war, you couldn't. The timpanist was as careful as anyone when he was in the building, and never said anything around Rammelt or Kleber in the cellos, or Bucholz, Schuldes, Woywoth-these five were the really obnoxious party members. Just five of them, and yet that was enough to poison the whole ensemble. Once he had seen Woywoth tell Hans Bastiaan, a mild little violinist, "You have to say Heil Hitler when you greet someone now," and Bastiaan had replied, "Ah but it's also nice to simply wish a good morning, isn't it?" and Woywoth had glared at him until Bastiaan had scurried away like a mouse.But very few of them were like that. They were like children when it came to politics, they didn't know what to say about it and didn't want to know. Most of them hadn't fought in the first war; most lived their whole lives inside music. Although sometimes a few of them gathered in a rehearsal room, and someone would look over someone's shoulder at a newspaper and mutter things, Oh dear this latest victory in Russia seems to be only half as far along as the one before, it's a Zeno's paradox of a front. Or tough talk under the breath, ha ha ja sure, a mode common to everyone since the Twenties at least. The latest word was that hundreds of British bombers had destroyed Hamburg in a single night, burned it to the ground. Berlin was sure to follow, no one could doubt it. And yet no one could say it, not with n.a.z.is in their midst, sanctimonious petty a.s.sholes that they were. The Berlin Philharmonic used to belong to its players, they had owned it, each player a share, but Goebbels had forced them to sell, had seized them. They were birds in a cage now, and had to be fearful of traitors. Around the midnight tables a few of the most disgusted had even discussed the situation and what they would do the moment the war was over: they would immediately dismiss Rammelt, Kleber, Bucholz, Schuldes, and Woywoth, and then they would open their first postwar concert with an overture by Mendelssohn. That was the plan, that was what they would do, they told each other drunkenly, when it was all over-at which point they could only wince and nod when Erich Hartmann added his usual coda to any such talk: When we're all dead When we're all dead.Now, glancing helplessly through the glare of the lights at the audience, the timpanist could see in the little faces out there that they had all heard a Hartmann, one way or another. The knowledge filled them like an iron bell in the chest: in a year or two, only a few here would be alive. Less than half? A tenth? None at all? None could tell, and yet all knew; indeed the music insisted insisted that they know, and the timpanist's mallets drove it into their skulls. That repet.i.tive little dirge in the ba.s.ses that announced the coda, the phrase that had given Berlioz the shivers, convinced him that the old man had known madness full well: it filled them now, vibrated their guts, they could not escape it. Six notes down, two notes up, over and over and over. Never had they played the first movement like this before, it was their knowledge playing it. The final ma.s.sive D-minor falling fourths, implacable, unavoidable, dragging them down, pushing them off the cliff into the abyss-hit every note: that they know, and the timpanist's mallets drove it into their skulls. That repet.i.tive little dirge in the ba.s.ses that announced the coda, the phrase that had given Berlioz the shivers, convinced him that the old man had known madness full well: it filled them now, vibrated their guts, they could not escape it. Six notes down, two notes up, over and over and over. Never had they played the first movement like this before, it was their knowledge playing it. The final ma.s.sive D-minor falling fourths, implacable, unavoidable, dragging them down, pushing them off the cliff into the abyss-hit every note:Bah b.u.m! bah b.u.m, bah b.u.m, bah b.u.mmmmmm,bah b.u.m b.u.m bah! bah! bah! bah! b.u.m.

Second movement: Scherzo molto vivaceThe scherzo is best regarded as a concerto for timpani and orchestra, especially if you are the timpanist. The solo timpani notes called for in the fifth bar are part of the tune, simply an octave apart, Ds both, repeating and thereafter anchoring the syncopated dactylic theme, and often banging it solo in the resonant pause of all the others. Soloist and orchestra. You had to love Beethoven for thinking of it.

The timpanist thumped his great three notes home and then off they went, rollicking inside a juggernaut that stopped for nothing. Molto vivace, Molto vivace, sure, but alive with some kind of thoughtless life, something insectile or germlike which shrugged off all obstruction. A life manic and onrushing, a life that killed. The mad blind energy of the universe. sure, but alive with some kind of thoughtless life, something insectile or germlike which shrugged off all obstruction. A life manic and onrushing, a life that killed. The mad blind energy of the universe.

Furtw.a.n.gler conducted this relentless engine in his usual spastic style, urging the group along by mysterious movements. Jerky, uncoordinated, enigmatic: the timpanist like all the rest of them had long since learned that the actual beat Furtw.a.n.gler wanted could be best read in the movements of his upper arms, or in his shoulders more generally. Nothing else about him was reliable as to tempo; his other shudderings meant G.o.d knew what. One could only conclude they referred to some qualities beyond physical expression which he nevertheless tried to convey, qualities which Furtw.a.n.gler himself was at a loss to define, even in rehearsal. He was a little bit crazy. He spoke in bursts, after pauses, and could be amazingly inarticulate when talking about what he wanted in a piece. He would pause at questions, tap the score, cluck in exasperation: Just look at the music, he would say in the end. Just play what's there.

And so they would. Ultimately it became a matter of group telepathy. This was always partly true, but under Furtw.a.n.gler's baton, completely the case. There was nothing else for it; they had to make it up themselves. The sudden responsibility of this, the imposed task, was startling, worrisome, sometimes electrifying. And it was in keeping with Furtw.a.n.gler's slippery resistance to the n.a.z.is. Just as he would not let them dictate to him, he would not dictate to his players, even though as conductor this could be said to be his job. The surprising thing was how often he made it work-how watching him flail up there, seeing him out of tempo and yet believing in him, they so often played as one organism, one mind. It was the best feeling in the world.Naturally they would have loved him just for that alone. Some of the other conductors were martinets, like Knappertsbusch, or idiots, like Krauss, and of course there was always the icy ugliness of the maestro's great enemy von Karajan. No-a good conductor was always appreciated, a great conductor often loved.

But with Furtw.a.n.gler it was so much more. The timpanist had felt like that for more than half his life; he had been a ba.s.s player as a young man, won his place in the Berlin Philharmonic right beside Erich Hartmann himself, but had gone to the front in the first war and fallen in no-man's land during an attack, broken his left arm and leg and for the following eleven days been caught there under fire from both sides, eating dead men's provisions and trying to hide or crawl back to the German side, which seemed to retreat before him. A night patrol had finally brought him in, but he had never afterward been the same, not in mind nor body, and often could not suppress a small quiver in his left hand. It had looked to be the end of his musical career, but Furtw.a.n.gler had watched him play, then suggested to him that his tremor would go away if he hit the drums, that it would only make him "quicker." It made a way to go forward.

That was big; but now scattered among the orchestra there were many other men who were only there, and perhaps only alive, because of Furtw.a.n.gler. Bottermund, Zimolong, Leuschner, and Bruno Stenzel were half-Jews; several others, including their concertmaster Hugo Kolberg, were married to Jewish women. She's always been that way, Kolberg would explain plaintively, I regret it but there it is, what can I do. Nothing; but Furtw.a.n.gler did something. The full Jews in the orchestra had been driven into exile in the Thirties, to the maestro's great distress and over his objections; but after that he insisted he had to have his people, that they and their wives were to be left alone. Naturally this made Goebbels intent to break him, and the maestro had had to sacrifice his career to hold the line; had quit as the musical director of the Philharmonic, and of the Staat Opere, quit all his official positions until now he conducted only as a guest, accepting invitations on an individual basis, and never in the conquered countries. And he never gave the n.a.z.i salute, not even when Hitler was there, always marching to the podium baton in hand and beginning the moment he got there, in a way he never had in the past. Everyone knew it was a defiance.Now he was far away, deep in Beethoven, the greatest German of all. Light on his feet. It was easy to think of Beethoven as a kind of G.o.d, his music as natural as sunlight or the ocean, but he had been a deaf old man too, scribbling day after day, a hard worker. Furtw.a.n.gler somehow made that clear, made the music new again, an improvisation only written down by chance and will. The players saw him struggling to convey this to them. Fighting for them, in so many ways: talking about it in empty cafes, late at night among the most trusted friends, the ones who were also in trouble, they had figured there were about a hundred people the maestro was protecting from the n.a.z.is. Not counting the hundred in the orchestra itself, all balanced precariously on his jerky shoulders.So of course they loved him. The timpanist would have died for him, and he was not alone in this. And in performance they were forced by his indirection to follow him into that mysterious other land, and do what they could to bring it back into the hall. The timpani part in the second movement allowed the timpanist many little solos reiterating its syncopated theme, a theme so mechanically regular that its effect was ultimately terrible, as if the wild finale of the Seventh had somehow been punched onto the roll of a player piano: blind energy, relentless, remorseless. Again the kettle drums sounded like artillery, even a brief return of the bombers overhead. Furtw.a.n.gler nodded grimly as he heard this. He had been hauled back from Vienna for this one, Hitler's birthday again, a predictable occasion and so he had been out of town as usual, in Vienna where the city's Gauleiter would have to give permission for him to leave, and von Schirach hated Hitler and presumably would refuse any such permission, making it a safe haven. But the word going round was that Goebbels had gotten von Schirach on the telephone and threatened him so effectively that Furtw.a.n.gler had been sent back. Now here they were between the swastikas, playing for the Fuhrer's birthday with the cameras rolling and the tapes recording, so that the performance would be seen by all the world, saved for all eternity. So all the maestro's efforts to keep his distance had come to naught, and now his body was clenched, his baton flew about spasmodically, the abstracted but pained set of his face twisted often into something like rage. Everything about him made it clear to his men that this was a bad occasion, a disaster, a defeat to be suffered. People in times to come would hear the tapes and see the film, and judge them. They would not understand. Only if the orchestra played well enough might people take pause, feel confused-recall the crimes of their own countries, recall how they had turned their heads and hoped it was just a bad time that would go away-recall how they too had failed to resist. Then they might hear the pain of being caught when the bad time didn't go away, when the thugs took over and there was nothing you could do. Or nothing you did. And if they imagined they would do something different, he thought with a sudden forte smash, they lied! They lied!

But if they heard they would understand. So there was nothing for it but to play as if possessed, to live inside Beethoven and throw it in the teeth of their captors, inhabit their music like a fortress and defy the n.a.z.is from inside it. The whole band understood this, their traitors notwithstanding; these first two movements showed it, they were playing in a fury, never had they ridden these old warhorses as hard as this! Feeling the effort all through his body, striking as if his mallets were clubs, the timpanist hit the final notes of the scherzo so hard that the head of his D drum split right across.Third movement: Adagio molto e cantabileNormally when the third movement began, he would sit on his stool with about eight minutes of rest, and there were other rests later; he rested more than played. So he would listen to the sweet flow of the strings, and think over his life in a particular order, as if fingering a rosary: first his mother, then his father, then his childhood and youth, lastly his music.

This time however he had to sit on the floor behind the drums and as quietly as possible pull a new head from the head folder, then unscrew the broken drumhead, unhoop it, and get the new one on, all in time for the drum to make its appearance. Possibly he could play the adagio's first timpani part on the other drums, then continue the repair between his first and second entries. It would take almost twenty minutes for the maestro to traverse this longest of adagios. At the worst he should be ready in time for the finale. But it would be better if he could do it right, so he went to work as fast as he could, given the requirement of utter silence and invisibility. Jurgen, one of the percussionists, noticed his predicament and crawled over to help him. "Gunther!" he whispered in his ear. "What have you done!"

"Never mind that," the timpanist replied. "Just help me."

They went to it, sitting on the floor and reaching up to the rims of the copper kettle. As they worked, a part of his mind still took in the music. The adagio was one of his favorite parts. People had a tendency to dismiss the Ninth's adagio a little bit, he had noticed, at least in comparison to the other three movements, each in their different ways so monumental. But that was a mistake; the adagio too was a marvel. Indeed if any one movement of the Ninth were to be singled out as being less astonishing than the rest, it would probably have to be the second, much though a timpanist should never say so, of course. Really it was best just to listen and accept: the whole symphony was great. The adagio was a blessing from G.o.d.Furtw.a.n.gler routinely played it as if pouring syrup, and on this night he took it slower than ever. The stately melody wound through its series of variations, meandering more each time, with a richness of elaboration reminiscent of Bruckner. Simply put, a very beautiful song. It steadied his hand as he untightened the screws, ignoring the anxious face staring up from inside the copper.Then there was a shift, a second theme that interrupted the song, coming as if from far away: trumpets speaking briefly. It might have been a call, a rally to return to town; but it was for others; and the song resumed, carried them downstream and away. Furtw.a.n.gler's dreamy pace never lost a nice line; they flowed in a way that revealed the deep currents beneath. This was what the maestro was listening for in his own world, it was obvious. All around the timpanist the strings were following that line.

It was a hopeless task to change the drumhead in complete silence, and at one point there was a metallic clank as the loosened hoop hit the edge of a music stand. The maestro's sound technician, Friedrich Schnapp, glared up from his c.o.c.kpit to the side; he had heard it. Now he saw their situation and grimaced at them fiercely. His gaze darted back and forth between his monitors and them. He looked desperate for a cigarette, he always was, but the Fuhrer didn't like smoking and the maestro neither, so there was no chance of that until the whole thing was over. Schnapp chewed his moustache instead, and Gunther and Jurgen pulled the new head over the drum, then placed the hoop over it, after which they screwed it down in careful half turns, moving around the drum opposite each other. He would have to tune the new head while playing, alas, unless he could risk tapping away sotto voce before his part began. He had done that before once or twice when the piece itself called him to do it. The maestro had heard these little additions to the score and tipped his head to the side as if considering whether such a thing was permissible; and then more than once had conducted conducted the transgression, the tip of his baton making little gestures as if to say, If you are going to be so bold, I am not necessarily opposed in theory; but you must be conducted. So he could tune the drum that way on this misbegotten Walpurgisnacht, and the maestro would understand-or not, in which case he could explain the situation to him later. the transgression, the tip of his baton making little gestures as if to say, If you are going to be so bold, I am not necessarily opposed in theory; but you must be conducted. So he could tune the drum that way on this misbegotten Walpurgisnacht, and the maestro would understand-or not, in which case he could explain the situation to him later.

Despite his focus on their silent handiwork, some inner part of him was also persisting with his rosary; apparently this music now triggered it in him no matter what else was happening. So, his mother. How he missed her. How hard she had worked. A baker who had raised her son in her bakery, while her husband was out on the road or in the bars. The main impression of her that remained with him was how hard she had worked. Even as a child he had been impressed by that; even now, remembering it, awe filled him. No one he had ever known since had worked as hard. Now she had been dead twenty-eight years.

Then his father, his crazy father, who had been too old even for the first war, and yet nevertheless was now working as a truck mechanic on the eastern front. Recently he had been in Berlin on a leave and taken his son out drinking, and regaled him with stories of what it was like to be the only mechanic on truck convoys numbering in the scores of vehicles, with just him and a road engineer named Matthias to keep things moving. Every trip is the f.u.c.king Iliad Iliad and and Odyssey Odyssey combined, boy, the roads have been destroyed and we're always axle deep, and last time out Matthias wasn't along and trucks were sliding into ditches and ca.n.a.ls, jack-knifing, you name it, and we'd drive up and get out and they would look at me! And I would look at the mess and think, Please, Matthias, combined, boy, the roads have been destroyed and we're always axle deep, and last time out Matthias wasn't along and trucks were sliding into ditches and ca.n.a.ls, jack-knifing, you name it, and we'd drive up and get out and they would look at me! And I would look at the mess and think, Please, Matthias, speak speak to me now, to me now, be be with me now, what would you with me now, what would you do do with this ridiculous mess-and I swear to you, Gunther, I swear to G.o.d, I swear by your mother, that Matthias with this ridiculous mess-and I swear to you, Gunther, I swear to G.o.d, I swear by your mother, that Matthias would would speak to me! And I would tell everyone what he was saying, tell them to do things I had never seen or heard of! It was Matthias inside me, speaking through me. We would fix the mess and on we would go. We're all inside each other, boy. We can call mind to mind, you can hear it if you listen. speak to me! And I would tell everyone what he was saying, tell them to do things I had never seen or heard of! It was Matthias inside me, speaking through me. We would fix the mess and on we would go. We're all inside each other, boy. We can call mind to mind, you can hear it if you listen.I know, the timpanist had said. It's like that when we play.But he could see that his father believed it literally. It was funny to think that the fate of the entire Russian campaign, in other words of the war itself, rested on the shoulders of a sixty-year-old mechanic who heard voices in his head.Furtw.a.n.gler flowed on. He was indeed taking the adagio slower than usual, no doubt as a rebuke to Goebbels and his gang. You people are here for the fire and glory of the other movements, Furtw.a.n.gler's tempo said, but I'm not going to hurry for you. Now you're the captives, caught by Beethoven, and the music that we bathe in is precisely the world that you have taken away from us. This is the meadow in the forest, this is Sunday at dawn in the clean washed street. This is the flow of slow time, the empty hour, contemplation itself. These are the things you have taken from us with your vicious stupidity. Listen and remember, if you can. If you ever knew.

The theme was very like a hymn, and they played it that way, sure. They were praying now, they were singing a devotional. But the devotional that you sing when you are twenty-three and have just been hired as a double ba.s.s player in the Berlin Philharmonic, is very different from the devotional that you hum in the Untergrund when the Lancasters growl overhead. It was the latter they sang now, both rebuke and consolation, the mix ultimately some kind of deep ache for the world they had lost. It would never come back.

Plucked emphases from the ba.s.ses formed a perfect cover for him to tap the D drum around the rim and check the tuning. It seemed all right. As a totality it was perhaps a bit sharp, but it was consistent, and he could pedal it down and all would be well.

Now he came to the similar light taps that were actually written in the score. How Beethoven had loved pulse, no composer before him and few since had ever thought to use the timpani in this way. Schnapp still glared at them from his c.o.c.kpit; they definitely had made some noise during their operation, but as there were people in the audience coughing from time to time in helpless little explosions, it did not seem to the timpanist that it could matter much. He focused on his part, the gentle tapping in time with the tune. When else did he ever get to sing like this? It was such a sweet and peaceful thing.

But then, a light bang: the end was nigh. Slower than ever, as the coda declared itself; even there he got to tap along, gently gently. Then the solid thumps at the end; but not the end (another little joke); but then the end.Fourth movement: Presto Ode to JoyFrom the first shot of the finale they were cast immediately back into the violence of the first and second movements. His big copper drums were fully involved in that, simply smashing smashing people back into reality and the war. The brief recollections of the first three movements made their truncated appearances each in turn, but each then mutated back into the war. The conflict swirled, thundered, sucked them all back down. All this dark re-announcement of the world was soon to be broken by the sound of the human voice, the hoa.r.s.e shout of a man. But for the moment darkness was all. people back into reality and the war. The brief recollections of the first three movements made their truncated appearances each in turn, but each then mutated back into the war. The conflict swirled, thundered, sucked them all back down. All this dark re-announcement of the world was soon to be broken by the sound of the human voice, the hoa.r.s.e shout of a man. But for the moment darkness was all.Then the famous theme, the raw material they would be wrestling with for the next half hour, came into the world as a kind of feeling in the stomach, a mere whispering from the ba.s.ses. The maestro liked this very pianissimo, and as usual he had arranged for the choir to come onto the stage during this first enunciation, so that the singers' little coughs and the unavoidable creaks of their feet on the risers were almost as loud as the ba.s.ses, which made Schnapp glower; but the maestro liked it that way. The first time through, he would say, it's supposed to ghost into you.So the Bruno Kittel choir shuffled in, as quietly as they could; and as they did (it took a while) the strings picked up the great tune and carried it and its most basic descant up into consciousness, rising then like a wave to break into the bra.s.ses. Now standing all around and behind the timpanist was a crowd of people, men and women ranked on risers. Easily a hundred women there to his right, in their white blouses and perfect hair-their presence palpable, their scent a mix of shampoo and sweat that smelled to him like bread. Now the whole nation was the band.The quartet of soloists stood up together, down there to Furtw.a.n.gler's right. Not these tones! Not these tones! the ba.s.s singer bellowed, and they began the immense and unstable mix of vocal and orchestral that would surge thereafter around the stage. Meanings ricocheted out of the strange lyrics: something better the ba.s.s singer bellowed, and they began the immense and unstable mix of vocal and orchestral that would surge thereafter around the stage. Meanings ricocheted out of the strange lyrics: something better had had to exist, they seemed to say, or they would make it out of nothing; this is how he interpreted it, and the phrases often matched that feeling. Then the whole choir jumped in with the ba.s.s, saying the same lines: and they were well launched on the tumultuous ride of the great finale. to exist, they seemed to say, or they would make it out of nothing; this is how he interpreted it, and the phrases often matched that feeling. Then the whole choir jumped in with the ba.s.s, saying the same lines: and they were well launched on the tumultuous ride of the great finale.

The structure of the movement made for many moments and pa.s.sages complete in themselves, each section a kind of continent they were to traverse. It was not quite a tone poem, but rather a set of variations so various that they were hardly recognizable as such; still the great tune lay inside each one of them, concealed within inversions, reversals, textural changes, tempo changes-every kind of change deployed, every kind of magnificence revealed. Keeping the order and flow between the sections was part of the maestro's job, and one aspect of his genius.

Among other things, he had taught them that when the quartet of soloists sang, the players had to dampen their sound to make the four audible to the listeners in the hall. He was very insistent on this dynamic modulation, and they had learned to play in a mode that might be called piano furioso, piano furioso, an intense mode which kept the music and the players on fire without overwhelming the soloists' sound. The orchestra was better at this than the Kittel choir, or so it sounded to the timpanist; when choir and soloists were both singing, the soloists could not possibly be heard over their ma.s.sed ensemble. Maybe it didn't matter. They were all singing the solos in their heads anyway, hearing them the way his dad heard Matthias. an intense mode which kept the music and the players on fire without overwhelming the soloists' sound. The orchestra was better at this than the Kittel choir, or so it sounded to the timpanist; when choir and soloists were both singing, the soloists could not possibly be heard over their ma.s.sed ensemble. Maybe it didn't matter. They were all singing the solos in their heads anyway, hearing them the way his dad heard Matthias.Surely there could be no one happier than a timpanist in the midst of this finale. He was asked to bang, thump, grumble, pound, tap, roar. He drove the music, punctuated it, played in it; it was as if Beethoven had been concerned to make him joyful. The so-called Turkish variation, with the tenor's solo in it, went off with jaunty gaiety, his fellow percussionists clanging away like drunken Ottomans. And the tenor was very fine. Every quartet had its best member, and this time it appeared to be the tenor, one Helge Rosw.a.n.ge, whose voice had a friendly and even n.o.ble tone. Unfortunately his solo's final flourish, his leap to the sky, was completely overwhelmed by the choir. One had to hear it like Beethoven had heard it.This led to the solemn chords of the pa.s.sage in which the choir sang very slowly. Over- the- stars Over- the- stars, and so on. That too went well. Again a prayer. The women's voices were an unearthly sound, there was no instrument that could match that sound for sheer beauty.On they moved, as if through rooms in heaven; and as each part of the symphony had gone so well, as well as any of them had ever heard it, the stakes were somehow raised, their spirits were raised; they became exhilarated. He could hear very clearly that the choir was as caught up by this as the instrumentalists: their voices, my Lord! All were caught together in something tremendous, flying up into it; and Furtw.a.n.gler was alive to it, he was pulling it together for them to hear and sing. On his face they saw: if they made it beautiful enough, they might leave the planet altogether. Oh they were culpable, yes, but they had not intended it. Suffering had driven them to it. They had gone mad, but in their madness made this. What if the worst culture made the most beautiful thing, what then? Wasn't it then more complicated than people thought? It would at least be a conundrum forever, people would look at the film and listen to the tapes and hear this music and take pause, see birds in a cage, hear that not everyone had been suborned, that some had had to stay and fight from within as best they could, with whatever they had, even if it was just to make a music that would remind people hunched by their radio that there was a better world.

Then there came the timpanist's favorite part in the entire symphony: the big fugue marked Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato-a braided fugue in which different parts of the choir split first into two parts, then moved on to other melodies while new voices took up the original pair, after which the orchestra also broke into sections and joined either one vocal part or another, while violins and ba.s.ses also tossed back and forth a rapid obbligato, above or below, or both at once. Large groups of people therefore were simultaneously belting out tunes entirely distinct and different from the rest- Joy, beautiful divine spark, we are intoxicated with fire as we enter your sanctuary- All men become brothers wherever your gentle wing reposes- Do you have a presentiment of the eternal, O world? Seek it above the starry tent! Over the stars it must dwell! Joy, beautiful divine spark, we are intoxicated with fire as we enter your sanctuary- All men become brothers wherever your gentle wing reposes- Do you have a presentiment of the eternal, O world? Seek it above the starry tent! Over the stars it must dwell! -all these phrases overlapping in the same time and s.p.a.ce, and yet the weaving lines made something ma.s.sive and right, a polyphony with so many interlocking melodies that the timpanist could not believe that Beethoven in his deafness could really have imagined what it would sound like, he must only have seen it as a pattern on the page, a hope in him, a hope now filling the hall, a magnificent chaos that was not chaos-he got to emphasize this on his drums-out of -all these phrases overlapping in the same time and s.p.a.ce, and yet the weaving lines made something ma.s.sive and right, a polyphony with so many interlocking melodies that the timpanist could not believe that Beethoven in his deafness could really have imagined what it would sound like, he must only have seen it as a pattern on the page, a hope in him, a hope now filling the hall, a magnificent chaos that was not chaos-he got to emphasize this on his drums-out of chaos chaos emerged emerged order order, out of chaos chaos emerged emerged beauty beauty, a beauty so complex it could not be comprehended. This must be the pa.s.sage, Gunther thought, as he always thought when playing it, where Beethoven had gotten confused during the premiere performance. The old man had sat on the stage next to the conductor, trying to help with tempi, but had lost his place, and the conductor had forged on without him; and when it was all over and the audience clapped and cheered, Beethoven had sat there still facing the orchestra, his back to the audience, deaf and unaware, perhaps disconsolate at losing his place; and so the soprano, Fraulein Unger, had gone to him and taken his hand and turned him around so he could see the audience, who then began leaping in the air to show him how they felt. This This was his country, was his country, these these were his people, the nation of musicians, sovereign even in chains. were his people, the nation of musicians, sovereign even in chains. Wherever your gentle wing reposes Wherever your gentle wing reposes. Whoever has become a friend of a friend. Whoever has become a friend of a friend. He pounded this feeling home at the fugue's end, just as Beethoven required of him. He pounded this feeling home at the fugue's end, just as Beethoven required of him.

Now their faces were all flushed. Red-faced, bright-eyed, they kept their gazes fixed on the maestro or their sheet music, as if to look around might reveal something unbearable. Intently the choir whispered the tip-toe section that followed, rocking back and forth, the whispered staccato seek it-above-the star-ry tent seek it-above-the star-ry tent before the sudden shouts, before the sudden shouts, Brothers! Brothers! Brothers! Brothers! Back and forth, whisper shout, whisper shout, such fun to do, all now shouting together as loudly as they could. Two hundred strong-he had never heard music this loud in his life. The performance just kept on getting better, they all heard it, it seized them up and carried them off! Back and forth, whisper shout, whisper shout, such fun to do, all now shouting together as loudly as they could. Two hundred strong-he had never heard music this loud in his life. The performance just kept on getting better, they all heard it, it seized them up and carried them off!The final quartet of the soloists came at last, sign of the approaching end: a curious gnarled thing to the timpanist's ear, like four lines of wool all kinked in knots; but with the gorgeous high turn of the soprano at the climax, that downward bend on the word wing wing-Where your gentle wiiiing alights. Where grace comes down and touches our soul. Where grace comes down and touches our soul.

The moment the soprano finished her last words, dein sanfter Flugel dein sanfter Flugel weilt weilt, Furtw.a.n.gler rushed them through the complex coda, he drove drove them. First very fast, in a real hurry-then the final ritard, for the toppling off the cliff of the voices, the falling fifths again-at the bottom of which he redoubled the pace to something quite inhuman. Always he did it this way, "go like a bat out of h.e.l.l," he would say, but never so fast as on this night of nights. Even at his usual tempo the piccolo player was forced to play with supernatural speed and volume, but on this night Frans had to simply throw his hat to the wind and skreel like a maniac, and the timpanist had to strike every note of it with him, and he did! them. First very fast, in a real hurry-then the final ritard, for the toppling off the cliff of the voices, the falling fifths again-at the bottom of which he redoubled the pace to something quite inhuman. Always he did it this way, "go like a bat out of h.e.l.l," he would say, but never so fast as on this night of nights. Even at his usual tempo the piccolo player was forced to play with supernatural speed and volume, but on this night Frans had to simply throw his hat to the wind and skreel like a maniac, and the timpanist had to strike every note of it with him, and he did!

Then they stood there, still inside the reverberations of the final chord, still ringing with it. The timpanist listened, quivering, his eyes fixed on Furtw.a.n.gler's face. In the silence certain to follow, everything that so horribly portended would come to pa.s.s, all that hung