“Oh, no, I don’t mean anything like that. I only want to hear the music again.”
“The music? Do you mean the piece I was playing when you came in? But I don’t call that a present. What is your name?” the girl suddenly changed her line of thought.
“Vinzi,” he informed her.
“Is it? My name is Alida Thornau,” she continued. “When I have to practice I find it so dreadfully tiresome that I always play a little piece between whiles. Do you have to practice, too?”
“What is practicing?” asked Vinzi.
“Oh, you are lucky if you don’t know what that is,” Alida exclaimed. “You see, practicing is sitting still on a round stool and playing up and down on a piano with your hands. This is called playing scales, and repeating the same tones about thirty times to and fro is called finger practice.”
“Why do you have to practice?” asked Vinzi, wondering deeply.
“Because one has to obey,” replied Alida, “and I have to practice every day from two to three o’clock because Miss Landrat tells me to. I have no lessons here the way I have in Hamburg. Every time father comes down here I have to promise him to obey Miss Landrat. He is up at the baths with my mother because she is ill.”
“How did you learn to play that beautiful piece?” Vinzi inquired, following all her information with great interest.
“Oh, one can easily do that when one practices so much and knows the notes. All one has to do is to play the notes that are written there,” was Alida’s explanation.