Five o'clock
Some phase of his work , some vision of his wife or daughters started forth from each bit of furniture , picture , doorway . Noiseless , in his slippers , he stole up and down between the study , diningroom , drawing-room , and anyone seeing him at his work in the dim light which visited the staircase from above the front door and the upper-passage window , would have thought : ` A ghost , a ghost gone into mourning for the condition of the world . ' He had to make this reckoning to-night , while the exaltation of his new idea was on him ; had to rummage out the very depths of old association , so that once for all he might know whether he had strength to close the door on the past . Five o'clock struck before he had finished , and , almost dropping from fatigue , sat down at his little piano in bright daylight . The last memory to beset him was the first of all ; his honeymoon , before they came back to live in this house , already chosen , furnished , and waiting for them . They had spent it in Germany -- the first days in Baden-baden , and each morning had been awakened by a Chorale played down in the gardens of the Kurhaus , a gentle , beautiful tune , to remind them that they were in heaven . And softly , so softly that the tunes seemed to be but dreams he began playing those old Chorales , one after another , so that the stilly sounds floated out , through the opened window , puzzling the early birds and cats and those few humans who were abroad as yet ... .