Einfried was quiet. The sleigh-party was not to be expected back before evening. The “serious cases” were lying in their rooms and suffering. Herr Klöterjahn’s wife and her older friend took a short walk together, and then went up to their rooms. Herr Spinell was also in his room, busy after his fashion. About four o’clock each of the women was brought her glass of milk, while Herr Spinell received his weak tea. Shortly afterwards, Herr Klöterjahn’s wife knocked on the wall which separated her room from Magistratsrätin Spatz’s, and said: “Let’s go down to the drawing-room for a while. I don’t know what to do with myself up here.”
“Right away, my dear!” the Rätin answered. “Just let me pull on my shoes. I have been lying down, you see.”
As might be expected, the drawing-room was empty. The two women took seats in front of the fireplace. The Rätin Spatz was embroidering flowers on a piece of canvas, and Herr Klöterjahn’s wife was also doing a bit of sewing, although she soon let her fancy work sink into her lap and looked vacantly above the arms of her chair. Finally she made a remark which it was not worth the trouble of moving her teeth for, but since the Rätin Spatz, however, asked “What’s that?” to her great humiliation she had to repeat the whole sentence. Then the Rätin Spatz asked a second time: “What’s that?” But at this moment steps were heard, the door opened, and Herr Spinell entered.
“Am I disturbing you?” he asked softly as he hesitated in the doorway. Then he looked on Herr Klöterjahn’s wife and inclined the upper part of his body in a certain tender, soaring manner.
The young woman answered: “Why, how could that be? In the first place, this room is a harbour open to all, Herr Spinell. And then again, in what way could you disturb us? I have the most decided sensation of boring the Rätin …”
At this he had nothing to answer, but allowed a smile to expose his carious teeth, and then walked somewhat stiffly under the eyes of the women to the glass door. He stopped here and looked out, with his back turned impolitely towards the women. Then he turned half around, although continuing to look out at the park. “The sun is gone. The sky has been clouding gradually. It is already getting dark.”
“Yes, indeed; everything is in shadows,” Herr Klöterjahn’s wife answered. “The sleigh-party is in for some more snow, it seems. Yesterday at this time it was still broad daylight; but now it is dark already.”
“Ah,” he said, “after all these excessively sunny weeks a little darkness is a rest to the eyes. I am quite grateful to this sun, which lights up the beautiful and the common with equally insistent clarity, that at last it has hidden itself for a while.”
“You do not like the sunlight, Herr Spinell?”
“Since I am not a painter. We become more introspective without the sun. … It is one thick grey mass of cloud. Perhaps that means thawing for tomorrow. In any case, I should not advise you to keep looking at your fancy work there, if I may say so.”
“Oh, don’t mind that, for I have already quit. But what is there to do?”
He had dropped on to the stool in front of the piano, with one arm resting on the cover. “Music …” he began. “Who ever hears music these days? Once in a while the English children sing little nigger songs, but that is all.”
“And yesterday afternoon Fräulein von Osterloh went speeding through ‘The Monastery Bells,’ ” Herr Klöterjahn’s wife remarked.
“But it is true that you play,” he said pleadingly, and stood up. “You used to play every day with your father.”
“Yes, Herr Spinell, but that was then! Back when we sat around the spring, you know …”
“But do it today!” he begged. “Just a few bars just this once! If you only knew how thirsty I am after …”
“Our family doctor as well as Dr. Leander have both forbidden it expressly, Herr Spinell.”
“They are not here, neither one nor the other! We are free … you are free! Just a few meagre chords …”
“No, Herr Spinell, we must not think of it. Who knows what sort of marvels you expect of me! And I have gotten out of practice, I assure you. I can do scarcely anything by heart.”
“Oh, then play this Scarcely-Anything! And furthermore, here are some scores, lying here, right on the piano. No, this is nothing. But here is Chopin … the Nocturnes. And now all that is necessary is for me to light the candles …”
“Please don’t expect me to play, Herr Spinell! I am not allowed. If it should hurt me?”
He was silent. He stood there in the light of the two candles; large feet, long black coat, pale grey-haired beardless face, and hanging hands. “Now I won’t ask you again,” he finally spoke very softly. “If you are afraid that it may hurt you, then by all means leave the beauty dead and dumb which might acquire utterance beneath your fingers. You have not always been so prudent. Not, at least, when you were called upon to surrender yourself to the very opposite of beauty. Then you weren’t worried about yourself, and showed a hastier and surer determination when you abandoned the spring and put off the little golden crown. … But listen,” he went on after a pause, and his voice sank even lower, “if you sit here and play the way you once did, when your father stood beside you and made his violin sing those tones which caused you to cry … then it may come about that the little golden crown will glisten secretly in your hair again …”
“Indeed?” she asked, smiling. It happened that her voice broke on this word, so that it was pronounced half hoarsely and half tonelessly. She coughed, and then said: “And they are really Chopin’s Nocturnes you have there?”
“Certainly. They are opened and everything is ready.”
“Well, then, in heaven’s name,
