“What good is that to me?” Agnes burst out. “How does it help me to play ever so well? What good would it ever do me even to practice day and night? Nika and I can only keep on one year more, and then everything is over. Then she can’t paint any more and I can’t have any more music lessons, for we shall have to become dressmakers. We won’t even have time to go through the higher classes in school. I would a thousand times rather travel through the world and sing in front of the houses for pennies—yes, I’ll do that!”
“Can’t your mother help you?” asked Cornelli, remembering the mother’s help in her own case.
“No, she can’t; and she is very unhappy herself. There is not a soul on earth who could help us, for our guardian says that it just has to be.”
Cornelli was quite crushed by this explanation, for now she understood quite well why Nika often had such sad eyes. The hopeless prospect made Cornelli’s heart heavy, too. When Agnes had had such a passionate outbreak, she did not regain her composure for several days. Then Nika would not say a word, either, and the mother only looked very sadly at her children.
Then Dino also became silent, for he knew what tormented his mother and his sisters. He would have loved to help them, but he knew no way. So Cornelli could not laugh any more, either, and her friend’s great sorrow weighed on her, too, for she had experienced a heavy grief herself and had not forgotten what it was like.
X
New Life in Iller-Stream
Winter had come. For the inhabitants of the garret lodging the days were filled with so much regular work that the nights were always greeted with loud regrets and complaints. They were always sorry when the day was done and no more time was left for their plans. Agnes was especially angry and ready to spit fire from disgust at the arrival of the hated bedtime which always broke up everything.
“We lose half of our lives in sleeping,” she indignantly called out several times. “I wish you would let us sing all night long, Mother,” she said. “We should only be more keen for our other work next day, if we could really devote ourselves to music for a while, instead of always stopping off in the middle whenever we are in the mood to sing.” The children’s mother, however, did not agree with Agnes, so the nights had to be used for sleeping as before.
Cornelli’s singing delighted Agnes more and more. Cornelli sang everything as lightly and freely as a bird, and with such a clear and resonant voice that everybody got pleasure from it. There was no other voice in the whole school which was as sure and as full as Cornelli’s. Even the teacher said so, and during the singing lesson he placed her right in front of him, because she was the best leader of the chorus.
In the middle of winter Mr. Hellmut wrote to Mrs. Halm to inform her that he was taking a lengthy journey to foreign parts. As he felt that Cornelli was well taken care of in her household, he was anxious to use this opportunity for travelling. He also wrote that he had shortened his last trip in order not to tie his kind cousin and her friend too long to his lonely house. He told her that he was very sorry not to be able to pay her and Cornelli a visit before leaving, for he had to start at once.
Never before had spring come so fast. So at least it seemed to Cornelli, who was walking home alone one day from school. The winter had gone by and already a mild wind was blowing through the streets, and the melting snow was dropping from the roofs.
From the top of a roof a little bird was whistling and singing a song of delight to the bright blue sky above. Cornelli’s school had been over sooner than the other children’s, so she was in no hurry and stood still to listen. A ray of sunshine was flowing into the street, and the bird kept on singing and whistling, on and on, a heavenly, familiar sound.
Suddenly the lovely beech wood at home rose before Cornelli’s eyes, and she saw the trees in their first green leaves, the first violets under the hedge, her beloved first violets; she saw the yellow crocuses sparkling beside the bright red primroses in the garden. The birds at home used to whistle above her in all the trees in just the same way as these in the city.
Oh, how lovely the coming of the spring had always been at home! How wonderful it would be to see all these familiar sights again! At that thought Cornelli ran to the house as fast as she possibly could. Sitting down beside her inkwell she wrote as follows:
Dear Papa:
I am sure it is more beautiful at home now than anywhere else. May I come home soon? I am sure that the violets are out and that everything is getting green in the woods. Soon there will be lots of flowers in the garden, and later on the roses, and then all the berries and forget-me-nots in the meadows will come out. I know now that it is nowhere as beautiful as at home. I should love to show the mother and the girls everything, and I know that Mux would
