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88 pages, Paperback
First published November 20, 1991
In the spring of 1650, Madame de Sainte Colombe died. She left two daughters aged two and six years. Monsieur de Sainte Colombe was inconsolable at the death of his wife. He loved her. It was upon this occasion that he composed Le Tombeau des regrets, as a memorial to his grief.
He was a teacher of the viol which at that time was enjoying a certain vogue in London and Paris. He was a noted master of the instrument.
One of his pupils, Côme le Blanc the Elder, declared that he contrived to imitate all the inflexions of the human voice: from the sigh of a young lady to the sob of an old man, from the war cry of Henri de Navarre to the soft breathing of a child trying to draw something, from the distracted groan sometimes produced by sexual pleasure to the almost voiceless gravity, deprived of nearly all force and harmony, of a man lost in prayer.
Madeleine grew into a beautiful woman, of a slender loveliness, and filled with a curiosity whose promptings she was unaware of but which aroused agonized feelings in her heart. Toinette made joyful progress in musical invention and virtuosity.
‘It pains me, Madame, not being able to touch you.’
‘There is nothing to touch, Monsieur, but the wind.’ She was speaking slowly, as the dead always do. She added:
‘Do you think there is no suffering in being only of the wind? Sometimes it brings notes of music to our ears. Sometimes the light carries fragments of our appearances to your gaze.’

”La música está simplemente aquí para hablar de lo que la palabra no puede hablar. En este sentido, no es del todo humana”.