an exclamation after the false note, which was not far from a little oath, and when her hands dragged behind the inspired will, then she loudly sang the melody as if to make the fingers ashamed and force them to follow. In this way she had stormed through the grand Allegro's sunlit mountain-land and descended peacefully to the Adagio's lonely valley, with the deep shadow round the still, shiny water mirror, where the mind searches its inner life, but still with the gaze wistfully uplifted towards a hoped-for glory; then again to soar into the ethereal regions, where the Rondo lives in a heavenly light and undisturbed splendour, joyously warbling and trilling as a blessed spirit of a skylark that dwells not among clouds but between stars.
Minna threw herself back in the chair; I went up to her and pressed a long kiss on her forehead. "Thank you," I whispered.
"What a thing to thank me for!" she said, and looked at me in astonishment, as if she feared I was making fun of her.
"How can you say so! I am absolutely astonished. I knew well that you were musical, but I had not imagined you could play like that."
A sudden heartfelt joy beamed up to me in her eyes; but she lowered them at once, and her lips curled in a good-natured, ironical smile.
"Yes, is it not true! I am quite a Rubinstein in striking wrong notes."
"Why do you mock? I know quite well that it was not perfect, but all the same you played beautifully."
"Oh! That is what almost makes me desperate each time I play, to hear it so beautifully and not be able to produce it. And especially when, as I sometimes think,
