There had been weeks of such weather
as we are having now. Exercise was impossible till after sundown. I had
dreamed of a breath of freedom, but instead of the open door I was in
straiter bonds than ever.
"I revolted first against keeping hours. I would not get up to breakfast,
I refused to study, it was too hot to practice. I took my own head about
books, and had my first great orgy of the Russians. I used to lie beside
a chink of light in the darkened library and read while Fraeulein in the
music-room held orgies of her own. She had just missed being a great
singer; but she was a master of her instrument, and her accompaniments were
divine. What voice she had was managed with feeling and a pure method, and
where voice failed her the piano thrilled and sobbed, and broke in chords
like the sea.
"I can give you no idea of the effect that Tolstoi, combined with
Fraeulein's music, had upon me. My heart hung upon the pauses in her
song; it beat, as I read, as if I had been running. I would forget to
breathe between the pages. One day Fraeulein came in and found me in the
back chapters of 'Anna Karenina.' She had been playing one of Lizst's
rhapsodies--the twelfth.
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