"I wonder who?" "Well, it'll come back to me presently. It is new to me, though, that you are interested in pictures." Bertha smiled. "Well, it wasn't really on account of the pictures alone. But you mustn't think that I am quite so silly as all that. I do take an interest in pictures." "And so do I. If the truth must be told, I think I would rather be a painter than anything else." "Yet you ought to be quite satisfied with what you have attained." "Well, that's a question that can't be disposed of in one word. Of course, I find it a very pleasant thing to be able to play the violin so well, but what does it all lead to? Only to this, I think: that when I am dead my name will endure for a short time. That--" his eyes indicated the picture before which they were standing--"that, on the other hand, is something different." "You are awfully ambitious, Emil!" He looked at her, but without evincing the slightest interest in her. "Ambitious? Well, it is not such a simple matter as all that. But let's talk about something else. What a strange idea to indulge in a theoretical conversation on the subject of art, when we haven't seen each other for a hundred years! So come, then, Bertha, tell me something about yourself! What do you do with yourself at home? How do you live? And what really put it into your head to congratulate me on getting that silly Order?" She smiled a second time. "I wanted to write to you again," she answered; "and, chiefly, I wanted to hear something of you once more; It was really very good of you to answer my letter at once." "Good? Not at all, my child! I was so pleased when, all of a sudden, your letter came--I recognised your writing at once. You know, you still have the same schoolgirl writing as.... Well, let us say, as in the old days, although I can't bear such expressions." "But why?" she asked, somewhat astonished. He looked at her, and then said in a rapid voice: "Well, tell me, how do you live? You must generally get very bored, I'm sure." "I haven't much time for that," she replied gravely. "I give lessons, you must know." "Oh!" His tone was one of such disproportionate pity that she felt constrained to add quickly: "Oh, not because there is really any pressing need for me to do so--although, of course, I find it very useful, because ..." she felt that it would be best to be quite frank with him ... "I could scarcely live on the slender means that I possess." "What is it, then, that you are actually a teacher of?" "What! Didn't I tell you that I give piano lessons?" "Piano lessons? Really? Yes, of course ... you used to be very talented. If you hadn't left the Conservatoire when you did ... well, of course, you would not have become one of the great pianistes, you know, but for certain things you had quite a pronounced aptitude. For instance, you used to play Chopin and the little things of Schumann very prettily." "You still remember that?"