Then he stood and began to play “Shenandoah.” He made the Markneukirche sing. After the first phrase he double-stopped and the melody seemed to cry out of its own accord in several voices. It was a song that came to people as sadness, as memory, as longing. It was a kind of spirit unto itself, reflections of a mountain river that carried with it the souls of the ancient people who had lived there long before the white man came; the blue Shenandoah River, fifty-five miles long and clear as air. I love your daughter. A remote place of memory and recall now far away from this arid land.
