“Nothing,” I answered.
“It is very clear you see nothing. It is awful. You play like a peeg! Toodle, toodle, toodle, SQUEAK! Oh—” and then he clasped his hand to his forehead and glared up at the ceiling.
“You must see peecture,” he said after a moment of silence, “a pretty peecture; I give you time to theenk.” (He did) “Now go!”
And I did.
I don’t know what I played, but I saw our living room; the lounge that has grown lumpy from the twins jumping on it; the piles of popular music on the piano; mother’s darning in a big basket by the table; the Boston fern in the bay window; even a pan of fudge that didn’t harden, with a knife in it, and Roberta’s knitting—always a tie—half poked under a sofa cushion.
And I suppose that doesn’t seem like a pretty picture, but it was pretty to me, and it carried me through.
“You can take lessons from me,” Signor Paggi said, as I finished. I thanked him in a little squeaky voice that must have sounded funny.
“And now,” he went on, “you can get up. You theenk you seet upon my piano stool all day? You do not.”
And then I got up and went over to the bench, and my knees shook more than they had as I went over to the piano, which was so silly that it made me ashamed. Leslie took my place, and I don’t think she was much frightened. She was pretty sure of her playing she told us later, and she was used to playing for people, and her assurance I thought would help her, but—it didn’t. Signor Paggi let her play all her selection, before he spoke, and as he did he cleaned his nails with a toothpick.
“Are you deaf?” he asked in an interested, remote way.