This article illustrates the psychoanalyst's reverie as it appeared in analytic work with a child patient who had suffered an early trauma. According to Bion and later Ogden, the analyst's reverie can take many forms, including different sound images. During the analysis of the traumatized child, the analyst's reverie developed from a simple tune derived from an aria belonging to a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, to a more tangled journey through the music of Bach and the story of the child. Bion's theory of containment and reverie, and its further development by Ogden and others, is described. The author tries to show how impressions in art can help the analyst to understand the patient and develop his or her sensitivity to the human condition.