CORNELLI
while giving it to me he said: ‘I shall really make something fine out of you.’”
Agnes was throwing her music sheets away as if they were her greatest enemies; then she ran away to her room. There she threw herself down on a chair and began to sob loudly. Cornelli had followed her, for she was filled with sympathy. Putting her arms about Agnes, she said: “Tell me, Agnes, what makes you cry. I know what it is like to have to cry like that. But why do you do it now, when your teacher has just praised you?”
“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
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