He looked at her imploringly, his eyes said: "Have pity on me! Don't say, 'it grates'! because if it does grate, I am miserable, I am done for!"
But the cantoress was much too busy and preoccupied with the dinner to sympathize and to understand how things stood with her husband, and went on:
"Of course it grates! Why shouldn't it? It deafens me. When you sing in the choir, I have to bear it, but when you begin by yourself—what?"
The cantor had grown as white as chalk, and only just managed to say:
"Grune, are you mad? What are you talking about?"
"What ails the man to-day!" exclaimed Grune, impatiently. "You've made a fool of yourself long enough! Go and wash your hands and come to dinner!"
The cantor felt no appetite, but he reflected that one must eat, if only as a remedy; not to eat would make matters worse, and he washed his hands.
He chanted the grace loud and cantor-like, glancing occasionally at his wife, to see if she noticed anything wrong; but this time she said nothing at all, and he was reassured. "It was my fancy—just my fancy!" he said to himself. "All nonsense! One doesn't lose one's voice so soon as all that!"
Then he remembered that he was already forty years old, and it had happened to the cantor Meyer Lieder, when he was just that age—
That was enough to put him into a fright again. He bent his head, and thought deeply. Then he raised it, and called out loud: