It seems that he is in a transitional state "of shadows wandering alive"[19], and he waits for the Lily's fatal touch to be reunited with her forever in death. In the fairytale, the Lily touches the Prince unintentionally, while defending herself from his Hawk. In the novel, she does it deliberately and her touch visibly changes Beale: he flinches, then a sudden stillness comes upon him, and the "ghost of a smile" begins to hover "about his mouth." 

She opened a black lace parasol and set it upon her shoulder, then drew her arm through Beale's and smiled at him again. Her audacity made me gasp, for my friend Barton Beale is notorious for his absolute abhorrence of physical contact. … I saw him flinch, then try to draw back, and then I saw him suddenly go very still and smile. It was a tender, boyish smile, the smile he usually reserves for Bach's toccatas and the occasional pre-war Stabat Mater. 'How about a walk around this pretty garden? I've always wanted to meet you, Barton,' she said. His face was not quite so ashy white as I had seen it before, and the ghost of that smile still hovered about his mouth.

Before going to the temple of Segeste she touches him once again, as if preparing him for the journey together. It occurs at dawn, and her touch straightens him the way death straightens one's body.

With her free hand she lightly touched the back of his head and he straightened up and smiled at her. 'Why, where have you been all day, honey?' she said. 'I'm ready for that little trip to the ends of the earth you promised me. Shall we go?' Barton said nothing at all, but this time offered her his arm, and together they climbed the hill in the direction of the temple. In silence we watched them go into the red and pink glory of the sunset. I don't believe I have ever seen such a sunset. Above the bands of bright, clear colour, the sky rang with a long, low, sweet note that echoed and re-echoed from all the darkening hills.

The story of Barton Beale is the story of a pianist and a piano that echoes the tragic relationship of Glen Gould and his beloved Steinway CD 318. With the wit, humor and ingenuity so characteristic of her style, Grace Andreacchi reconsiders the drama known as the "grand love" within the framework of Goethe's myth of the Lily. References to Gould's biography shed light on many details in the novel. First of all, it concerns the description of the "Nubian princess" whose "very black" color and enormous size is perfectly explained by the texture of the piano: the letter D in the name of the piano's model indicates that it was the largest one the company had produced. Indeed, the instrument was nine feet across and it weighed almost a thousand and a half pounds. The fact that the piano was made during the war "justifies" the "military" associations mentioned above. Besides, the theme of art and war attains its new connotation when considered in relation to the myth of the piano and the pianist.

Glenn Gould, who had been in search of the piano that would fit his playing of Bach, discovered it backstage where it was awaiting shipment back to the company for disposal. He claimed that the piano had a soul and soon he "married" it with the "blessing" of a great piano tuner, Verne Edquist. The "marriage", however, ended tragically when the "family" went to Ohio to make a recording with the Cleveland Orchestra. At the last moment, Gould cancelled the recording and returned back to Canada. On its way back, the piano was dropped and it never recovered from the fall. The loss caused Gould's deepest despair, from which he never recovered. All attempts to repair the piano ended in fiasco. "Five full years after CD 318's accident, according to a Steinway official present, Gould examined the latest try at repair and nearly broke into tears. 'This is not my piano,' he moaned. 'What has happened to this piano? I cannot play it, I cannot use it.'  Once he even recorded on a harpsichord since he claimed that all his life he'd been searching for an instrument that would sound "a little like an emasculated harpsichord".[20]

He never "gave up on his ideal instrument until 1981, when he reluctantly re-recorded the Goldberg Variations on a new piano. He died a year later, still bereft and still enraptured."[21]

The theme of "emasculation" determines the "sexless" relationship between Barton Beale and Carolina Lily and it also affects the description of the Goldberg's II:

The later recording is of a profound and arctic sadness. It sounds in turns puritanical, mawkish, hymnal, almost sexless, and then again twisted and degenerate. What was formerly prodigal musicality is now absolute mastery - there is no shaping of the phrase, but the phrase itself, the very thing. There is no piano-playing, there is, almost, no piano. The tempi are more extreme - of a glacial slowness, or rushing like Gadarene swine towards the precipice of chaos. The lowering bass lines gather like storm clouds. The adagio is now of a beauty altogether different from the shy sensuality of Goldberg I. 

The necrosis, the dying down relationship between Beale and Carolina Lily, as well as the rumor about her illness and the doctors' recommendations "to go south" are better understood in connection to Gould's tragedy. This also explains the contrapuntal movement of the Lily, who would never join Beale in the North.  Her arched eyebrows - the mythic arches "over the doors of the best romanesque ecclesiastical buildings" - are two bridges leading to north and to south, two Goldbergs, two ideas of the Ecclesiastes: sensual pleasures for the foolish vs. intellectual pleasures for the wise.

The Temple that Beale dreams of entering is described as related to Webern:

'The temple reminds you of Anton Webern?' 'Sure! Why not? I mean, the temple has more thirty-second notes, so to speak, but the basic concept is very similar to that of Webern's Opus 27.'

The Opus 27 is chosen as a reminiscence of Glenn Gould's Idea of North: while explaining the concept of this radio documentary, he plays the Opus.

Beale's final moments are in accord with those of Goethe's Prince, whose lifeless body was encircled by the Serpent to prevent it from decay until the Man with the Lamp arrives. There is no serpent in Beale's room, but as he bids his farewells to the world, the Vienna waltz is played, instead. The rhythmic pattern of the waltz evokes the association with the circle that keeps Beale's body alive by making it vibrate in sync with the music. Owing to the rhythm, the waltz attains the qualities of the Serpent who surrounds the Prince and, at the same time, becomes an accompaniment-bridge that transports him to North.

Softly, from all sides, came the rapturous strains of an old Vienna waltz, gliding from hilltop to lake, and back into the roseate clouds. 'Good bye, Old World,' he whispered.

The spiral stair that Beale ascends before heading North becomes another symbol of the Serpent-bridge that connects him to North.

More allusions to the fairytale are conveyed through Beale's last moments before the departure.

… the blue air around us deepened to a purple twilight. Suddenly he started up and looked around him with a wild, desperate air. 'My God, the sunset!' he cried. 'I'm late!' He sprang to his feet and tore open the door. I followed him in a wild chase up the spiral stair of the tower and out onto the roof of the castle.

Beale's puzzling remark about being late can be better explained in the context of the fairytale. The reviving power of the Lamp works before dark since "at sunset, intolerable putrefaction will fasten" on the dead body. In the fairytale, the Man with the Lamp is late, and it makes everyone panic; the Lily cries, watching the sun yielding to the night. At the last moment, the Prince's Hawk appears. "Sailing high in the air, with purple-red feathers", he brings the good news about the Man's coming.

The purple twilight, the angst of being late, the setting sun - all those details design the final scene of Scarabocchio.  Will the Man arrive in time to stop the necrosis? Will the Lamp bring warmth before the northern lullaby puts to sleep all feelings, attachments, dreams, lives, time and space? To answer this question one should seek what would symbolize the light of the Lamp in the novel. The answer lies in the Conversation Book of Paul van Beethoven: "What is the symphorion? … It is light from light."

These words echo the condition in which the Lamp fills all the living with inner light:

If another light were beside it, the Lamp only cast from it a pure clear brightness, and all living things were refreshed by it. … Meanwhile the Sun had set; and as the darkness increased, not only the Snake and the old Man's Lamp began shining in their fashion, but also Lily's veil gave-out a soft light, which gracefully tinged, as with a meek dawning red, her pale cheeks and her white robe.

The symphorion appears to be the reviving light for Beale. As he admits to Meister, it's in his head. But the thing is - he wants to get rid of before going North…