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That night I was awoken by a clarinet. The sound was barely audible. Sometimes it grew slightly stronger, sometimes it abated. It was as if the clarinet had got lost in the dark and was wandering through the woods in search of a road.
What was driving the clarinet on? Was it bemoaning its lot, weeping over the time it had wasted? Was it complaining about its wanderings through the night? The clarinet moaned, wheezed, cried out in sudden passion, fell away again to a whisper, muttering something indistinct, like a prayer recited swiftly and in a barely audible voice.
I stepped outside and walked toward the sound. In front of me was dark forest. At first it seemed like an impenetrable wall, but as I drew closer the trees parted. Black trunks rose around me like organ pipes, and the rus
