The door between Cornelli’s and the sisters’ room was always open now, for they all had wished it. There was not a single evening on which they did not make use of the last moment for talking to each other about their mutual interests.
Cornelli was filled with admiration for Nika and for everything she did. She could not understand how Nika, who was so lovely and could do such wonderful things, could have a sorrow. She had never forgotten about it, because she had often noticed that the young girl suffered from some grief.
Even Agnes often stopped laughing quite suddenly. She would say: “Yes, Cornelli, it is easy for you to be jolly. It is easy for you.” So Cornelli knew that Agnes also carried a care about with her. When Agnes frowned and made dreadful wrinkles, Cornelli was quite sure that then her sorrow was hurting her. She would have loved to help her, but she had never asked her friends about it. She knew that she had been glad when nobody had asked her about her own trouble.
One day it happened that Agnes came home from her music lesson quite upset and terribly excited. “Oh, Mama,” she called from the door, “the teacher has given us the pieces today which we have to play for our examinations. He has given me the most difficult one, and 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 Cornelli, remembering the mother’s help in her own case.
“No, she can’t; and she is very unhappy herself. There is not a soul on earth who could help us, for our guardian says that it just has to be.”
Cornelli was quite crushed by this explanation, for now she understood quite well why Nika often had such sad eyes. The hopeless prospect made Cornelli’s heart heavy, too. When Agnes had had such a passionate outbreak, she did not regain her composure for several days. Then Nika would not say a word, either, and the mother only looked very sadly at her children.
Then Dino also became silent, for he knew what tormented his mother and his sisters. He would have loved to help them, but he knew no way. So Cornelli could not laugh any more, either, and her friend’s great sorrow weighed on her, too, for she had experienced a heavy grief herself and had not forgotten what it was like.