mptions; God had rejected her. This conviction became irrevocably
rooted in her heart.

In her union with Daniel music had become something divine; and she saw,
now this union had been broken, something in music that was perilous,
something that was to be avoided: she understood why she was so
unemotional, why her feelings had dried up and vanished.

But she wanted to make one more effort to see whether she was entirely
right in the analysis of her soul. One morning she went to Daniel, and
asked him to play a certain passage from the "Harzreise." She said she
would like to hear the close of the slow middle movement which had
always made such an appeal to her. Her request was made in such an
urgent, anxious tone that Daniel granted it, though he did not feel like
playing. As Gertrude listened, she became paler and paler: her diagnosis
was being corroborated with fearful exactness. What had once been a
source of ecstasy was now the cause of intense torture. The tones and
harmonies seemed to be eating into her very soul; the pain she felt was
so overwhelming, that it was only with the greatest exertion that she
mustered up sufficient self-control to leave the room unaided. Daniel
was dismayed.

On her return to the kitchen, Gertrude heard a most peculiar noise in
her bedroom. She went in only to see that little Agnes had crept into
the corner of the room where the harp stood, and was striking the
strings with a copper spoon, highly pleased with her actions. Gertrude
was seized with a vague, nameless terror. She took the harp into the
kitchen, removed the strings from the frame, rolled them up, put them in
a drawer, and carried the stringless frame up to the attic.

"What can I do?" she whispered to herself, and looked around in the
attic with an expression of complete helplessness. She longed for peace,
and it seemed peaceful up where she was. She stayed a while, leaning up
against one of the beams, her eyes closed.

"What can I do?" That was the question she put to herself day and night.
"I can no longer be of any help to my husband; to stand in his way
merely because of the child is not right." Such was the trend of her
argument. She saw how he was suffering, how Eleanore was suffering, how
each was suffering on account of the other, and how both were suffering
because of the despicable vulgarity of the human race. She thought to
herself that if she were not living, everything would be right. She
imagined, indeed sh