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St Petersburg, 1890
The first time he heard it, Aziraphale nearly didn’t. He was in St Petersburg for work; he hadn’t meant to attend any concerts. He’d meant to go straight back to London.
But he’d met a bookseller, a very interesting bookseller, who had insisted on showing Aziraphale his library. So of course Aziraphale had accepted. And the bookseller had insisted on introducing him to some friends, and it so happened that one of them — an awfully good-looking man — played the cello. He was playing in a concert that very evening, he said.
New chamber music, never heard before, Monsieur Aziraphale! He had to come. The cellist absolutely insisted!
As well he might; the concert was extraordinary. It took place in an utterly breathtaking hall, before an audience of fascinatingly attired people. And the music! Oh, the music.
It was sad, the way all of Mr Tchaikovsky’s music was sad. Beautiful, of course. But one of the pieces had a particular impact on Aziraphale: Souvenir de Florence. It was angry in a way Aziraphale didn’t expect. It was for 6 instruments — two violins, two violas, and two cellos — and it sounded like an indignant cry of despair. It hurt.
That was the first time he heard it.
Perhaps Aziraphale should have thought of Mr Tchaikovsky during that concert. After all, it was his music, the inspiration for which was — presumably — his despair. But Aziraphale started thinking about Crowley from the very first notes, and couldn’t stop. The music was - it seemed to be about Crowley. It was as though, sitting in that concert hall, Aziraphale was listening to a portrait of Crowley.
If Crowley expressed all of his rage and despair, Aziraphale thought, it would sound just like this. It would be beautiful, powerful. Heart-wrenching. It would be an irresistible cry of outraged inner turmoil.
After the performance, Aziraphale spoke with another person in the audience. Such a lovely thing about art — the discussions that follow. Humans have so many thoughts! So many ways to love art!
“Oh!” Aziraphale gushed. “Wasn’t it so very beautiful? And so sad. And perhaps - so angry?”
“Just so, Monsieur Aziraphale, just so. This Souvenir of Florence expresses... an anger that is compelling.”
“Goodness, yes, despair so furious that it cannot be put into words. Only sounds. A Furie ohne Worte.”
Aziraphale’s interlocutor nodded at his reference to Mr Mendelssohn’s Songs without words. “You are a lover of music, Monsieur Aziraphale.”
“How could one not be?”
*
New York, 1893
The second time he heard it, it was a revised version of the sextet. Mr Tchaikovsky had made changes to the third and fourth movements. It was even more thrilling.
The third movement was particularly riveting. It began with a sad but gently melody. So beautiful! And when the intensity increased it wasn’t… it wasn’t as though a change occurred. It was gradual. Almost imperceptible. So that when it became a wild tempest of wrath — the violins and violas all playing a single frenzied rhythm, over and over — it seemed as though it had always been there.
Exhilarating.
It was only after the performance, as he made his way back to his lodgings, that it occurred to Aziraphale that Souvenir de Florence still made him think of Crowley. Still made him think of the faint but inextinguishable light of hope that never entirely left Crowley. Of how that light made everything about Crowley poignant, somehow.
And it was only then, in the cool night airm that Aziraphale noticed: he has associated Crowley with the piece without examining that association. For all the millennia he’d known Crowley, Aziraphale’s conscious mind had seemingly been failing to pay attention to… something. Some suggestion. Some detail. Some small behaviour that made Aziraphale associate the demon Crowley with music that sounds like a towering fit of anguished rage.
It has to have been some non-verbal clue. Or clues. He doesn’t know what they were, but Aziraphale missed them. Inexcusable. Crowley never said anything, but… No.
“No, he didn’t… I’m sure he didn’t say anything.” Aziraphale tells the empty air.
Crowley… teased and tempted. He enticed. Beguiled. And something about him suggested, hmm, peril? But he was always outwardly calm. Unruffled. Something about Crowley had therefore wordlessly communicated despair, and Aziraphale only noticed it with his unconscious mind.
Worse: he had failed to respond.
*
Zürich, 1970
The third time, Aziraphale didn’t hear it, he saw it. The score. He didn’t notice it at first; he was busy handwringing about Crowley.
“It’s just that he’s a demon.”
“Mm.” His psychoanalyst nodded. “Does he make you feel good?”
“He… yes, I suppose. Not in the way you might be thinking, but yes.”
“So, makes you feel good. Does he hurt you?”
“Oh.” Aziraphale is startled by a realization. “No. No he doesn’t. He never has.”
“But he is a demon?”
“Well he… he hurts other people.”
“Ah! I comprehend.” Dr Miller nodded. “And you feel perhaps guilt?”
“I don’t know.” Aziraphale fidgeted, looked anywhere but at her, and repeated himself. “I don’t know… Oh!”
That was when he saw it, on top of a pile of books. Souvenir de Florence, sextuor pour instruments à cordes par P. Tschaĭkowsky.. Aziraphale stared. Why would there even be sheet music in a psychoanalyst’s office?
“Monsieur Fell?”
“Oh I do apologize, Dr Miller. It’s the Tchaikovsky —”
“Mm,” she nodded, making a note in Aziraphale’s file.
“This specific piece, you see, it reminds me so much of him.”
“Because it is Tchaikovsky?”
Aziraphale understood the insinuation but behaved as though he didn’t. “No…”
“Have been to Florence? With your demon?”
Had he? Surely. But that wasn’t why. “No.”
“So this music… it is demonic music?”
“Oh. No. No, Dr Miller, it just sounds like him. It sounds sad and angry like him. Sad and angry and beautiful like him.”
“Monsieur Fell. I will now ask of you a question.”
“Yes?”
“You do not have to answer, Monsieur Fell.”
“Understood.”
“Do you love him?”
“Oh.”