This is the story in prose of the discarded. Those who have, after living their lives in its full richness, are treated as shivering ghosts, so lacking in self-awareness as to be truly tragic.

As the eloquent conveyor of graciousness, the old woman beckoned me. Hers was the elegance, not as an ornament but as an essence, as she whispered in that wonderful soft voice that once silenced all, Come here . . . sit down. Who are you? How could she forget me?

I am the history of sand, the weightless walk that comes from the wings of music. I am the witness who discovered her a decade ago after the Second World War. That unparalleled musical world which collapsed under the Nazi butchers, under Goethe, Schiller, and the final march of Wagner. Who am I? I too was music, I too had dreams, I too survived the unthinkable, born out of the Satanic tempest. I gazed at the old woman, not believing that her life could end like this.