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Updated: May 22, 2025
The first tip-toed to the door and, with pointed lips, called the name, Albertina, out into the long hall with as much coyness as had been employed in summoning the second sister. Albertina was the youngest of the three; she was about forty. But she had forgotten, like Jasmina and Saloma, to erase twenty years from the calendar: all three had preserved the youthful charm of their girlhood.
It is such an unexampled, gruesome, abominable deed that we have been sitting here ever since it was brought to our attention, wringing our hands in vain attempt to make up our minds as to what course we should pursue.” Fräulein Jasmina and Fräulein Albertina nodded their heads in sadness and without looking up.
“Artists attach no importance to externalities,” replied Fräulein Jasmina with knitted brow. “A great mistake. He always looked as if he had just come out of a bandbox. You remember, don’t you?” The other two nodded. The three then walked down the garden path, arm in arm. Daniel was standing in the vegetable market before the Goose Man Fountain, eating apples.
Fräulein Jasmina let a rose fall, and when Benda picked it up for her, she pressed her hand against her scarcely noticeable breast and gave voice to her gratitude, again with infinite grace. When they reached the street, Benda said in a tone of compassion: “They are three delicate creatures; they live their lonely lives like vestal virgins guarding a sacred fire.”
Jasmina had not the shadow of a desire to perform; her sisters were equally disinclined to listen. “It is not right,” the three kept saying, when they heard of Eleanore’s visits. “It is not right.” Even Meta the maid was of the opinion that her calls were highly unconventional. As Daniel played on and merely nodded to her, Eleanore’s eyes fell on the mask of Zingarella.
She did not dare leave without finding what was the matter, and the silence with which she was received was broken only when she herself decided to ask some questions. Fräulein Jasmina took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes. Fräulein Saloma looked around somewhat like a judge at a session of court.
The three sisters received this statement with despair; they wrung their hands. They would rather die, they said, than meet this voluptuary face to face again; they would endure all manner of martyrdom before they would have him come in. All three spoke at once; they threatened Eleanore; they implored her. Jasmina told with bated breath how Meta had come to them and confessed the whole business.
He said it without giving the matter the slightest consideration, and then shook hands with the sisters. Fräulein Jasmina added that he could use the piano on the first floor whenever he wished to, and that it merely needed tuning. Daniel shook her hand again, this time with special warmth. His joy had awakened in him a measure of clumsy familiarity.
Finally she came to a conclusion: she asked whether she might speak to Meta. Filled at once with anxiety and hope, Saloma asked her what she wanted with Meta. She replied that she would tell them later what her purpose was. Fräulein Jasmina showed her the way to Meta’s room. When Meta caught sight of Eleanore, her features became at once beclouded in sombre amazement.
A chorus of surprise greeted his ears, rendered in perfect time by the three female voices. Fräulein Jasmina asked him whether he was a singer or a violinist. He replied that he was neither, that he was a composer, or that he at least hoped to become one. With that an expression of intense spirituality spread over the faces of the sisters, so that they looked like triplets.
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