Meaning and Expression. The labyrinth, a convoluted, inescapable maze, is associated with the sinful city where Tom has lost his innocence, his love, and his sanity. In an ironic inversion, he imagines his current state of madness as an awakening from the foolish dream of his lived reality. The music conveys his directionlessness with the winding thirds of the accompaniment, the inward-turning double-neighbor notes of the melodies, and the refusal of the bass, B♭, to budge. The apparent inability of the harmony and rhythm to settle into the normal patterns suggested by the Mozartean textures and melodic figures adds to the sense of instability and disorientation.