Then he had the portrait framed and a glass shade put over the rose,
hoping that now things would be all right, but secretly fearing
that they would not.

After that he went on a week's journey; he returned home late at
night and went straight to bed. He woke up once, imagining that
the hanging lamp was burning.

When he entered the sitting-room late on the following morning, it
was downright hot there, and everything looked frightfully shabby.
The blinds were faded; the cover on the piano had lost its bright
colours; the bound volumes of music looked as if they were deformed;
the oil in the hanging-lame had evaporated and hung in a trembling
drop under the ornament, where the flies used to dance; the water
in the water-bottle was warm.

But the saddest thing of all was that her portrait, too, was faded,
as faded as autumn leaves. He was very unhappy, and whenever he
was very unhappy he went to the piano, or took up his violin, as
the case might be . ...

This time he sat down at the piano, with a vague notion of
playing the sonata in E minor, Grieg's, of course, which had been
her favourite, and was the best and finest, in his opinion, after
Beethoven's sonata in D minor; not because E comes after D, but
because it was so.

But the piano was very refractory to-day. It was out of tune, and
made all sorts of difficulties, so that he began to believe that
his eyes and fingers were in a bad temper. But it was not their