By the time he first met Jenny he was clear of Wagner, had glanced a
little patronisingly at Beethoven, turned aside and enwrapped himself
in the sombre splendour of Bach, right away from the world; then,
harking back, with a fresh vision, a sudden sense of the inevitable,
had anchored himself in the solemn, wide-stretching harbourage of
Beethoven.
It was like a return from a long voyage, tearing round a world full of
beauty and interest, and yet, at the same time, full of pettiness,
fuss, annoyance: a home-coming beyond words. There was a sense of
eternity, a harmony which drew everything to itself, smoothing out the
pattern of life, the present life and the life to come, so crumpled
that, up to this time, he had had no real idea of the meaning of it.
All at once everything was immensely right, with Jenny as an essential
and inevitable part of the rightness. He felt this so strongly that he
never stopped to wonder if other people felt it as plainly as he did.
Apart from all this, he was bound by the inarticulateness of his class.
His Jewish blood lent him a wider and more picturesque vocabulary than
most, and yet it stopped at any discussion of his feelings.
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