Free Middle C by William H. Gass Page B

God. It has given up every good thing. Having given up every good thing, no good thing comes near. Not, certainly, the major third, the pagan chord. The foundation of nature—which is vibration … Nature is nothing but vibration.
    These hands—my uglies—my hands are a denial … they deny life. They deny you, Joey, all others’ bodies; they deny me. They deny light; they keep caged the darkness clenched in their clench. They are my shame—these uglies—my pain—these uglies—my curse. It makes me sad—sorry—sad and sorry to see them. You understand? Sometimes I hide them inside of my shirt. Then I feel their heat hot on my belly.
    Out of breath Mr. Hirk sat in silence for a few moments. When Monteverdi wished to say “joyful is my heart” he did so in the major third; when Handel refers to life’s sweetest harmonies he does so in the major third; what is central to the “Ode to Joy” but the major third? in La Traviata , when they all lift their glasses and cry “Drink!” “ Libiamo! ” they do so to the major third; and what does Wagner use, at the opening of The Ring , to describe the sensuously amoral state of nature? he employs the major third; then just listen to that paean of praise in Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms or the finale of Shostakovich’s Fifth , and you will hear again the major third.
    And the spider heard it, suspended there between floor and ceiling, felt it when the thin silver thread he hung from vibrated in sympathy with Chopin, with the étude’s instructional thirds. Joey—look at the green-gray light in this room, at this secondhand light, the pallor ofdeath … and what do you hear in my voice, or what would you hear if you were to hear my heart? you’d hear the minor sixth—the sixths that the spider fled from, the gold ring in Rhinegold —the source of so much contention—Leonora’s bitter tears in Fidelio , sorrowful Don Quixote, yes, sixths serve anguish, longing, despair, so tell me why should the spider stay when the line he clings to trembles like a tear? Only we wallow in bitterness, only we choose gray-green lives and devote ourselves to worlds, like the shadow-lean leaves of those ghost plants littering the floor—leaves, worlds—which do not exist, the traces of a light that is no longer there.
    Joey made as if to go, rising from the piano bench, when Mr. Hirk’s nearby presence pushed him down. Mr. Hirk hung over Joey now, supported by the piano itself, bent because of his bones. If one day you learn to play, Joey, you must play, whatever the key or the intervals are, as if for , as if in , the major third, the notes of praise. Play C. Joey struck a key. There were several Cs, but Joey knew which was meant, a key that would sound a certain way. In filling our ear just now it was everywhere, Mr. Hirk said. Every. Where. Was it sitting beside that pot? No. Was it lying on the rug? Of course not. Everywhere? Ah, in the piano? No? Where it was made? Not this tone. Suppose someone shuts the door and then you, Joey, ride away on your bike. Where is the slam? eh? where is the small growl of the tire in my gravel? Why there it is—the growl—it’s in the gravel where it was made; there is the slam, too, where the door shut on the jamb! Bam! Do D. Joey did D. Hear? The note is everywhere again. Not at the end of your finger. In its own space! That’s where it is, filling us up with it, making a world of its own on its own. Just one note is enough. Do E. Joey E’d. Another filling, yet the same jar! Each note makes the same space and then floods it.
    Joey thought he sensed relief in Mr. Hirk’s voice, like someone wound up dangerously tight might feel once they began unwinding or the spring of a clock that was finally allowed to tell time.
    Oh, a dunce might say, hey, it came from the piano. And the French horn’s passage is from the middle of the rear of the orchestra, while the violins sing to the left of the conductor, violas and cellos moan on