t. But a fool I have
not been up to this moment; and if I am malicious, I am of course not
silly enough to confess the deed. Or again, assuming the second case
that I am innocent, then you, sir brother-in-law (pray don't contradict
me), are the simpleton for putting such unbecoming questions to me.'

"I could not answer the spectral being. When I saw that Elizabeth no
longer took any pleasure in playing the piano that I procured from
abroad in our retirement, and asked the reason of it, she said, sadly,
'Dearest, if I do not wish to incur deadly vexation, I must no longer
play.' 'How so?' 'Because Ernestine has flatly forbidden me. She
says that in a house where there lives such an accomplished pianist as
herself, she could not allow any one else even to strike a note.' This
presumption was too much for my patience. I ran to her chamber and
asked her ironically to play me something, since she would not allow
any one else to touch the instrument. She followed me, laughing
loudly; and truly she played in such a masterly style, that my anger
was turned into admiration and rapture. 'Well!' she said, gravely,
when she had finished, 'one may have in one's own house all enjoyments
for which connoisseurs would travel fifty miles, and yet one can be
satisfied with such bungling and such hammering up and down the keys
with clumsy fingers. Oh! fools and idiots, who, rogues as they are,
talk of art and only mean vapour; they can only sip the nectar, and the
wonderful becomes but trash in their rude hands. If I did not feel a
constant disgust for life, if men were not repulsive to me, I should
never cease laughing.' From that time she often joined in our music,
at most permitting Elizabeth and myself to sing, though she maintained
that we possessed neither school nor method. Thus the winter passed
away. I was already poor, and with the prospect of being reduced quite
to beggary; Elizabeth was sickly, and the serenity of my life was gone.

"It was almost to be called a relief to our existence, when on the
approach of spring, Ernestine became ill, and was shortly so much worse
that she could not leave her bed. She grew more irritable as her
illness increased, and nothing vexed her more than that she could not
visit the Klausenburg, of which she had become so fond. One warm day I
sent her in the carriage, she searched long in the rooms, loitered
among the shrubs and ruins, and returned much worse than before. It
was