Chapter 3

One afternoon Dorothea, with an open letter in her hand, came rushing into Daniel’s room, where he was working.

“Listen, Daniel, Frau Feistelmann invites me over to a party at her house to-morrow. May I go?”

“You are disturbing me, my dear. Can’t you see you are upsetting me?” asked Daniel reproachfully.

“Oh, I see,” breathed Dorothea, and looked helplessly at the stack of scores that lay on the top of the table. “I am to take my violin along and play a piece or two for the people.”

Daniel gazed into space without being able to comprehend her remarks. He was composing.

Dorothea lost her patience. She stepped up to the place on the wall where the mask of Zingarella had been hanging since his return home. “Daniel, I have been wanting for some time to ask you what that thing is. Why do you keep it there? What’s it for? It annoys me with its everlasting grin.”

Daniel woke up. “That is what you call a grin?” he asked, shaking his head; “Is it possible? That smile from the world beyond appeals to you as a grin?”

“Yes,” replied Dorothea defiantly, “the thing is grinning. And I don’t like it; I can’t stand that silly face; I don’t like it simply because you do like it so much. In fact, you seem to like it better than you do me.”

“No childishness, Dorothea!” said Daniel quietly. “You must get your mind on higher things; and you must respect my spirits.”

Dorothea became silent. She did not understand him. She looked at him with a touch of distrust. She thought the mask was a picture of one of his old sweethearts. She made a mouth.

“You said something about playing at the party, Dorothea,” continued Daniel. “Do you realise that I never heard you play? I will frankly confess to you that heretofore I have been afraid to hear you. I could tolerate only the excellent; or the promise of excellence. You may show both; and yet, what is the cause of my fear? You have not practised in a long while; not once since we have been living together. And yet you wish to play in public? That is strange, Dorothea. Be so good as to get your violin and play a piece for me, won’t you?”

Dorothea went into the next room, got her violin case, came out, took the violin, and began to rub the bow with rosin. As she was tuning the A string, she lifted her eyebrows and said: “Do you really want me to play?”

She bit her lips and played an étude by Fiorillo. Having finished it but not having drawn a word of comment from Daniel, she again took up the violin and played a rather lamentable selection by Wieniawski.

Daniel maintained his silence for a long while. “Pretty good, Dorothea,” he said at last. “You have, other things being equal, a very pleasant pastime there.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dorothea with noticeable rapidity, a heavy blush colouring her cheeks.

“Is it anything more than that, Dorothea?”

“What do you mean?” she repeated, embarrassed and indignant. “I should think that my violin is more than a pastime.”

Daniel got up, walked over to her, took the bow gently from her hands, seized it by both ends, and broke it in two.

Dorothea screamed, and looked at him in hopeless consternation.

With great earnestness Daniel replied: “If the music I hear is not of unique superiority, it sounds in my ears like something that has been hashed over a thousand times. My wife must consider herself quite above a reasonably melodious dilettantism.”

Tears rushed to Dorothea’s eyes. Again she was unable to grasp the meaning of it all. She even imagined that Daniel was making a conscious effort to be cruel to her.

For her violin playing had been a means of pleasing—pleasing herself, the world. It had been a means of rising in the world, of compelling admiration in others and blinding others. This was the only consideration that made her submit to the stern discipline her father imposed upon her. She possessed ambition, but she sold herself to praise without regard for the praiser. And whatever an agreement of unknown origin demanded in the way of feeling, she fancied she could satisfy it by keeping her mind on her own wishes, pleasures, and delights while playing.

Daniel put his arms around her and kissed her. She broke away from him in petulance, and went over to the window. “You might have told me that I do not play well enough for you,” she exclaimed angrily and sobbed; “there was no need for you to break my bow. I never play. It never occurred to me to bother you by playing.” She wept like a spoiled child.

It cost Daniel a good deal of persuasion to pacify her. Finally he saw that there was no use to talk to her; he sighed and said nothing more. After a while he took her pocket handkerchief, and dried the tears from her eyes, laughing as he did so. “What was really in my mind was that party at Frau Feistelmann’s. I did not want you to go. For I do not put much faith in that kind of entertainment. They do not enrich you, though they do incite all kinds of desires. But because I have treated you harshly, you may go. Possibly it will make you forget your troubles, you little fool.”

“Oh, I thank you for your offer; but I don’t want to go,” replied Dorothea snappishly, and left the room.