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.
IV
Yet Dorothea said the next day at the dinner table that she was going to accept the invitation. It would be much easier just to go and have it over with, she remarked, than to stay away and explain her absence. She said this in a way that would lead you to believe that it had cost her much effort to come to her decision.
“Certainly, go!” said Daniel. “I have already advised you to do it myself.”
She had had a dark blue velvet dress made, and she wanted to wear it for the first time on this occasion.