Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker

by Gregory Maguire

A fellow needed two names, one for affection and the other for civic duty.

In fact, the world was no easier to understand than Bach. It seemed that the world was no more wonderful than Bach.

He thought of Felix bending over the ’cello and coaxing from it such testimonies of longing. Or perhaps there was no such thing as meaning to be found in those lines—not aspiration, not any human feeling. Perhaps the suites were just congeries of certain notes shaped by different keys and modalities. Nothing more than that. But how could nothing masquerade as longing?

Is it only in childhood that we are capable of taking in the whole world? What does it do to us that we briefly have that privilege? And then, what harm, when the fund of novelty in human experience runs dry?

Oh, the nonsense music could liberate from the wretched mind. The otherness of it—the wordless significance.

Was music beautiful because it was full of mystery, Dirk wondered, or was it full of mystery because it was beautiful?

“Never underestimate the value of a mother in wartime. She has the most to fight for.”