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“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 now evident that she could not recover. The physician said that he could not understand her disease, nor the state of the sufferer, for the vital powers were so strong in her that all the symptoms usually indicating death did not show themselves, and there was a probability of her speedy recovery; in a few days, however, he gave up all hope.

“We now really looked forward to a quieter future. Although we felt pity for the unhappy being, yet we could not deny that she had a disturbing effect on our life and the happiness of our love. We heard that she was near death, but as she had arranged with her doctor and nurse that we should not disturb her we had kept away. All of a sudden she much desired to see me, but requested that Elizabeth should not be present. I went and said as I entered: ‘Dear friend, you will doubtless be kind enough to give me back the documents which you took from my escritoire to vex me.’ She looked at me significantly with her dying eyes, which now seemed larger and sparkled brighter than formerly. There was something so singular, bright and glaring in her look, that any one having witnessed it would never wish to see any thing more terrible and inconceivable. After a pause she said: ‘Brother, do these foolish trifles still occupy your head? Yet it is no wonder, every one lives as he can. Sit down, my friend,’ she continued, with an air of contempt; I complied and sat down by her bed.