Still unspoilt. Where else would she get the courage? Which is just as well, because you see, my dear girl,” she said, turning to Franzi, “I myself, Leonore Constanza, began as a violinist, and it was suggested that I leave the conservatory for my total lack of ability, idleness, and absence of any musical talent. Suggested that I leave?—no, let’s be honest, they threw me out, and that was lucky for me, because otherwise I’d have muddled on with the violin course as best I might, and today I could be conducting a ladies’ ensemble somewhere in the sticks of Slavonia … yes, the conservatories are the trouble, they have a lot on their conscience. A positive plague! Don’t you agree, Einar?”

Einar who been awarded the gold medal of the Paris Conservatory, was seriously annoyed. “My dear Ellenor,” he said with as much incivility as he was capable of, “I can’t remember your ever being wrong.”

The motor car stopped outside the Hotel Majestic. “You will come in with us, won’t you?” said La Constanza.

“Oh no, thank you,” whispered Franzi, feeling ashamed of her shabby dress.

“Oh, come along, come along,” ordered La Constanza impatiently. Now she wants us to plead with her, she thought in annoyance. What are young people coming to these days? Are they so proud just because they’re not twenty years old yet? What on earth has got into their heads? But luckily she then remembered her own youth and the time after she was expelled from the conservatory. She had wandered around the streets, unable to work, unable to allow herself any peace, driven by just one question, just one idea: was her professor at the conservatory right or not? She would have liked to play to every passer-by in the street, every night-watchman on security duty, to find out if she was really ‘just slipshod’ or both slipshod and hopelessly lacking in talent.

During supper, Einar discreetly took out his watch.

“Yes, it’s time,” said La Constanza, rising from the table. “We’ll be back in a moment.” They drove to the station, and Einar went to get Franzi her ticket.

La Constanza walked up and down the platform with Franzi. The rails gleamed in the light of the arc lamps, there was a smell of dust, of waiting-rooms, poor people and beer, smoke and the damp wood of the sleepers. Elegant long trains of many railway carriages stood there empty. Little white plates on the trains said: Prague—Verona—Milan, Prague—Vlissingen—London.

“Verona, how wonderful that sounds!” said Franzi.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said La Constanza, who was heartily sick of travelling. “All that is just stupid. Working instead of throwing yourself away, that’s what matters. Keeping yourself and what you have together, yes, but most of all working. You’ll have to begin working all over again now, you do realize that? As if you’d never seen a piano before, beginning again every day. Oh, for goodness’ sake!” She took a step back in alarm. “Don’t for heaven’s sake just sit back feeling pleased with yourself because I didn’t throw you out, or I’ll be very sorry. No, seriously, work is the best thing there is. Living? Well, you can live anywhere, be happy anywhere, with anyone you like.”

Einar came back with the ticket. Then he bowed, kissed La Constanza’s hand, and went back to Dagmar, who was waiting a little way off. There could have been no sight more elegant and charming than the blond brother and sister, a handsome couple, people of the same kind.

“Yes,” said La Constanza, looked at Einar, “a woman can be very happy even with Herr Johannsen, always provided she’s something herself. My dear child, it all depends on doing something for yourself, whether it’s playing the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy or Beethoven’s Opus 111, not wasting yourself, cutting yourself in half, dividing your time between art and life. I know why I’m telling you this. You are not in fact a nice person, you will never be an agreeable mediocrity, so what’s left to you? Everything must be for your art, and if there’s anything left over—well, if someone will take it, good, and if not that’s good too. With the best will in the world, we are all only half-people when we’re with one another—so don’t go thinking that your art will be happy with a quarter-of-a-person. That would be a great mistake. I suppose it would just about do for the ladies’ ensemble, and I think you’re too good for that. You don’t have an impresario, do you? I didn’t either at your age.