I longed to learn whether I owed the happy moment after my playing to self-delusion, or what was the reason I had again fallen into disfavor with the Canoness. So, soon after dinner, I went into the park and sauntered about within a short distance of the summer-house, holding in my hand a book, at which I gazed intently without reading a line.
My friend Liborius had told me that Fräulein Luise drank coffee every Sunday afternoon with her Uncle Joachim, who made it himself in his little pot, and ordered the cakes from the town at the next station. They always enjoyed it very much, and could often be heard talking and laughing loudly together.
I had seen her go there that day, after giving a Sunday morsel to the sick peacock and stroking its back as it came up to her, screaming and fluttering. I did not understand how she could love the spiteful, disagreeable bird, any more than I could comprehend what attracted her to her godless uncle, with his sarcastic smile, whom I so greatly envied on account of her preference. I waited at my post an hour and a half in a very irritated mood, and was just in the act of turning away, and driving the arrogant enchantress out of my thoughts, when the door of the summer-house opened and she herself appeared, evidently in the gayest humor.
But, as she caught sight of me, a shadow instantly flitted over her face, and only a faint smile of superiority lingered on her lips.
"You are waiting for me, Herr Weissbrod," she said, carelessly, advancing directly to me. "You want a compliment for your church concert, do you not? Well, you played very finely."
I was so bewildered by this address, and still more by the glance with which she seemed to illumine my inmost heart, and read my most secret thoughts, that at first I could only stammer a few unmeaning words. She seemed to pity my awkwardness.
"Yes," she repeated, "you really played very finely. Where did you learn? Our organ sounds well, doesn't it? Do you play on the piano too?"
I answered that I had taken lessons at college, but had never made much progress on the piano, which required greater dexterity. Besides, there were no such beautiful, solemn melodies for the piano as for the organ.
She again looked at me with so strange an expression that I lowered my eyes.
"Do you love music only when it is solemn?" she asked, and turned away as if to leave me. But I was determined to speak freely and compel her to confess her grudge against me.