murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

clingy voice of hers with tears pouring out of her beautiful eyes. No
one could stay mad at her then.
"I still don't know why she chose me. Was I another victim to her, or a
source of salvation? I just don't know. Of course, it hardly matters
now. Now that everything is over. Now that I'm like this."
A short silence followed.
"She repeated what her mother had told me, that she had been moved
when she heard me playing as she passed the house. She had seen me
on the street a few times, too, and had begun to worship me. She
actually used that word: "worship'. It made me turn bright red. I mean,
to be "worshipped' by such a beautiful little doll of a girl! I don't think
it was an absolute lie, though. I was in my thirties already, of course,
and I could never be as beautiful and bright as she was, and I had no
special talent, but I must have had something that drew her to me,
something that was missing in her, I suppose. That must have been
what got her interested in me to begin with. I believe that now,
looking back. And I'm not boasting."
"No, I think I know what you mean."
"She had brought some music with her and asked if she could play for
me. So I let her. It was a Bach invention. Her performance was ..
interesting. Or should I say strange? It just wasn't ordinary. Of course
it wasn't polished. She hadn't been going to a professional school, and
what lessons she had taken had been an on-and-off kind of thing; she
was very much self-taught. Her sound was untrained. She'd have been
rejected immediately at a music-school audition. But she made it
work. Although 90 per cent was just terrible, the other 10 per cent was
there: she made it sing: it was music. And this was a Bach invention!
So I got interested in her. I wanted to know what she was all about.
"Needless to say, the world is full of kids who can play Bach far better
than she could. Twenty times better. But most of their performances
would have nothing to them. They'd be hollow, empty. This girl's
technique was bad, but she had that little bit of something that could
149