Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok Page A

completed.” He coughed and put his hand to his lips. “A very brief story. Is that acceptable to you? Yes? Thank you.”
    He peered at the papers in his hands, bending over them. His hands shook slightly. I glanced at my mother and saw on her face awe, anticipation, eagerness. She noticed my glance and turned her head away. A deep crimson flush rose from her neck and spread across her face. My father sat slumped in his chair, his arms folded across his chest.
    “Here is my story,” I heard Jakob Daw say. “Please forgive my occasional cough. It is an old cough and seems not to have improved despite your sunshine and warm weather.
    “Now for my little story.
    “A young woman lived alone on the grassy slope of a wide river. She had come to this slope after an immense journey from the dark lands of her childhood. She was a lovely woman, a girl really, with legs naked and slender as those of a crane, with skin the color of ivory, with hair long and yellow as the sun, a girl gentle and kind and outwardly at peace on this slope beside this wide, clear, calm-running river.
    “Along the slope grew an unusual lilylike flower. Its outer leafy sepals were dark blue, its inner whorl of scented petals were pale blue, its stem was light purple. When dried and crushed, this flower yielded an exquisite fragrance. The girl would gather these flowers, dry them in a large ceramic dish, grind them between two smooth white stones, and sell the powder to the matrons in the nearby village.
    “No one in the village knew where she had come from. No one in the village could remember when the little cottage in which she lived had been built. Nor could anyone recall who had built it. They would watch her come along the village street of an afternoon with her straw basket filled with the little paper packets of fragrance. She asked next to nothing for the packets and would soon be returning along the village road with her basket empty. She would follow the road along its curving path through a meadow of tall grass and wild shrubs. Then the grass would fall away and the ground would begin to slope downward toward the river. And there in the midst of the sloping earth, in an expanse of emerald grass that grew thick and never too tall, was the cottage. She would go inside and not be seen until the following morning when she would emerge and once again pick the flowers which she would then crush into the fragrant powders she brought daily to the village.
    “One day a small black bird flew over the village. He circled the village twice, searching carefully, for he was on a quest. He had reason to believe that the eternal inner music of the world was the cause not of joy, as nearly all believed, but of great harm. For bycomforting the pangs that often come in the wake of harm, the music dulled the conscience of man, eased the commission of evil. So this little bird believed, this bird with the shiny black body and the tiny red dot under each of his eyes. If he could find the source of the music he might discover a way of bringing it to an end and thereby awaken the world to the horror of truth and the need to live by its demands.
    “On that day, as the bird circled the village the second time, he saw the girl. It seemed to him that she gave off a light visible even in the brightness of day. He circled again, watching as the girl sold her packets of fragrance, watching the trail of light she left behind: the very air through which she passed seemed to brighten by her presence. And the music seemed especially strong in the landscape around the village. He followed the girl to her cottage, and there the music was stronger than he had ever heard it before. Could this girl and her cottage be the source of the world’s eternal music? The bird alighted on the roof of the cottage, prepared to wait and see.
    “Many days passed. Each morning the girl picked and ground her flowers. Each afternoon she sold her packets in the nearby village. But as the days