y, from notes and according to rule?' I told him that nature
had not gifted me with a voice. 'Oh, perhaps you play the piano, as
fashionable people do?' I told him I played the violin. 'I used to
scratch on the fiddle myself when I was a boy,' he said. At the word
'scratch' I involuntarily looked at the girl and saw a mocking smile on
her lips, which annoyed me greatly.

"'You ought to take an interest in the girl, that is, in her music,' he
continued. 'She has a good voice, and possesses other good qualities;
but refinement--good heavens, where should she get it?' So saying, he
repeatedly rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand together. I
was quite confused at being undeservedly credited with such a
considerable knowledge of music, and was just on the point of explaining
the true state of affairs, when some one passing the store called in
'Good evening, all!' I started, for it was the voice of one of our
servants. The grocer had also recognized it. Putting out the tip of his
tongue and raising his shoulders, he whispered: 'It was one of the
servants of His Honor, your father, but he couldn't recognize you,
because you were standing with your back to the door.' This was so, to
be sure, but nevertheless the feeling of doing something on the sly,
something wrong, affected me painfully. I managed to mumble a few words
of parting, and went out. I should even have left the song behind had
not the old man run into the street after me and pressed it into my
hand.

"I reached my room and awaited developments. And I didn't have to wait
long. The servant had recognized me after all. A few days later my
father's private secretary looked me up in my room and announced that I
was to leave my home. All my remonstrances were in vain. A little room
had been rented for me in a distant suburb and thus I was completely
banished from my family. Nor did I see my singer again. She had been
forbidden to vend her cakes in the chancery, and I couldn't make up my
mind to visit her father's store, since I knew that this would displease
mine. Once, when accidentally I met the old grocer on the street, he
even turned away from me with an angry expression, and I was stunned.
And so I got out my violin and played and practised, being frequently
alone half the day.

"But even worse things were in store for me. The fortunes of our house
were declining. My youngest brother, a headstrong, impetuous fellow, was
an officer in a regiment of dr