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“In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got played….it ought to stay written down….only there it was pure.” from Soul Music
“It was a thing of strangely tinkling tones and unbelievable cadences which somehow found its
way into our souls, reminding some of us that we have some.” from Snuff
Vetinari reacts to hearing Tears of the Mushroom playing her musical composition “The Twilight Serenade”.
As the music reaches its first crescendo, he is back in Genua again. The sun is shining,but the house sits in shadow. He is a little boy again, and his mother is dying. He sits beside her bed on a stool and holds her thin hand, as her ragged breathing goes in, then out, very slowly and with great effort. Her beautiful hair is strewn over the pillow, greasy from lack of washing and heavy sweating. Her blue eyes seem to turn gray as life slowly flows out of her body like the tide flows away from the shore. There are no words left to say, so he simply sits with her as the day winds on and life outside the window continues. When it begins to get dark, she tries to urge him to go to his bed, but his pride won’t allow him to admit defeat. He will fall asleep later, his head on her stomach. In the morning, she will be gone.
He does the impossible on a daily basis. But no move on the political chess board can ever win her back.
Order is essential, that is why people need to be controlled and musical compositions need to be kept on the page. His greatest secret may be that he is not naturally disciplined; it has taken years to quell his temper and to learn to physically mask every emotional reaction. He has survived and thrived, and so has Ankh-Morpork for the most part. Rarely does he think about the cost. The headaches and sleepless nights are mostly shrugged off, and one day follows another. But the sound of the harp cuts through his carefully constructed mask like a fine blade through thin fabric. And he remembers what it was like to care about someone. He can do nothing but sit quietly until the performance ends.
When he is alone at the end of the day, he can feel his eyes start to sting with an unfamiliar sensation. It is bad enough that this has happened, there is no way that he will make it worse by actually shedding tears. So he decides instead to read some reports and peruse some historical records that he has been interested in deciphering. Before sleep comes, he allows himself the single indulgence of quietly singing to himself a little tune that his mother used to sing to him in their quiet moments together. He will give up a tiny piece of his pride to remember her for a little while longer.