Читать книгу Daughters of Men - Hannah Lynch - Страница 6

In the meantime the frightened owner of these eyes like the March violets of Rapoldenkirchen was passing through the worst moment of her existence. Two bars of the “Invitation” served to bring down the wrath of artistic majesty on her head, and very nearly on her hands.

“What do you call that?”

“Weber’s ‘Invitation,’” died away in the girl’s throat.

“Weber’s ‘Rubbish,’ you idiot! It is as little like the ‘Invitation’ as the music of my cats is like the ‘Funeral March.’ But you have a good touch. Something may be made of you when you have learnt your scales, and know how to sit before a piano. Seat low, thumb covered, body tranquil. Are you prepared to regard yourself as a beginner, with less knowledge than a stammering infant—or do you still cherish the opinion of ‘Everybody’ that you are very clever?”

“I know very well that I am quite ignorant, and it is because I want to learn that I have come to you,” Andromache said, with a simple dignity that mollified the artist.

“Well, I see you are not a fool like your respectable mother,” she said. “Now go home and practice as many scales as you can for three or four or even more hours a day, and come to me at the end of a week. Hard work and slow results, remember.”