Gertrude heard Daniel playing the piano. She raised her head to hear what he was playing.
“She told me I was to go with her to Glaishammer to get a washwoman for you,” continued Philippina.
“Ah, what do we want with a washwoman?” said Gertrude; “we cannot afford one. It costs a great deal of money, and every cent of money spent means a drop of blood from Daniel’s veins. Don’t go to Glaishammer! I would rather do the washing myself!”
She knew, however, at that very moment that she had done her last washing. There was something so mournful about the light of the lamp. Agnes’s little face looked so pale as it peeped out from under the covers, Philippina cowered so witlessly at the floor. But all this was only for the moment; all this she could take with her up into a better world.
She bent down over the child, and kissed it, and kissed it with hot, burning lips. A lurk of unsoftened evil crept into Philippina’s face. “Listen, Gertrude, listen: you are all Greek to me,” said Philippina, “I don’t understand you.”
Gertrude went over to Eleanore’s room, where she stood for a while in the dark, trembling and thinking. At times she was startled: she heard some one walking about, and she thought the door would open. She could scarcely endure her impatience. Suddenly she remembered the attic and how quiet it was up there; there no one could disturb her. She decided to go up. On her way she went into the kitchen, and took a thick cord from a sugar-loaf.
As she passed by Daniel’s room, she noticed that the door was half open. He was still playing. Two candles were standing on the piano; Eleanore was leaning up against the side of the piano. She had on a pale blue dress that fell down over her beautiful body in peaceful folds.
Gertrude looked at the picture with wide-open eyes. There was an inimitable urging, a reaching aloft, and a painful sinking-back in the piece he was playing and in the way he was playing it. Gertrude went on up without making the slightest bit of noise. It was dark, but she found her way by feeling along with her hands.