greatness?no; never, never.
He was aware, dully, that the opera was over. The audience
was screaming its joy. He knew the sound. They had screamed
that way when Day of Peace had been premiered, but they
had been cheering the man he had been, not the man that
Day of Peace showed with cruel clarity he had become. Here
the sound was even more meaningless: cheers of ignorance,
and that was all.
He turned slowly. With surprise, and with a surprising
sense of relief, he saw that the cheers were not, after all, for
him.
They were for Dr. Barkun Kris.
Kris was standing in the middle of the bloc of mind
sculptors, bowing to the audience. The sculptors nearest him
were shaking his hand one after the other. More grasped at
it as he made his way to the aisle, and walked forward to the
podium. When he mounted the rostrum and took the com-
poser’s limp hand, the cheering became delirious.
Kris lifted his arm. The cheering died instantly to an
intent hush.
“Thank you,” he said clearly. “Ladies and gentlemen, be-
fore we take leave of Dr. Strauss, let us again tell him what
a privilege it has been for us to hear this fresh example of his
mastery. I am sure no farewell could be more fitting.”
The ovation lasted five minutes, and would have gone
another five if Kris had not cut it off.
“Dr. Strauss,” he said, “in a moment, when I speak a
certain formulation to you, you will realize that your name is
Jerom Bosch, born in our century and with a life in it all your
own. The superimposed memories which have made you
assume the mask, the persona, of a great composer will be