Many an evening thereafter I sat before the church, or walked up and down. Once I found the door open, and for half an hour I sat shivering and happy inside, while the organist played in the organ loft by the dim gas light. Of the music he played I heard not only what he himself put into it. There seemed also to be a secret coherence in his repertory, each piece seemed to be the continuation of the one preceding. Everything he played was pious, expressing faith and devotion. But not pious like churchgoers and clergymen, but like pilgrims and beggars of the Middle Ages, pious with a reckless surrender to a world-feeling, which was superior to all confessions of faith. He frequently played music by the pre-Bach composers, and old Italian music. And all the pieces said the same thing, all expressed what the musician had in his soul: longing, a longing to identify oneself with the world and to tear oneself free again, listening to the workings of one’s own dark soul, an orgy of devotion and lively curiosity of the wonderful.