The Piano Teacher

Chapter 26

Samuel knew something was amiss when Charlotte started playing Etude No. 6 almost nonstop in the cabin. As soon as he brought her home that evening, she played the song deep into the night, until she grew tired. Then, she only slept a few hours before she woke up again in the early morning to play some more.

That song that had petrified her for so long now leaped from her fingertips as if it was as natural as breathing. Samuel did not tell her to stop at any point because he knew the importance of the piece to her, how long she had been trying to play it, and now she finally could. But he couldn't understand why, and it bothered him.

He had never seen her so lively. In all his years of caring for her, she had only been able to get to a certain point of wellness. Now, she had surpassed it point, or so it seemed to him. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that the catastrophe of her fainting spell in the theater never happened. The confidence she had before that time had returned in a way he never expected.

Samuel let her play the instrument through the morning while he sipped on his watery coffee. It was a Sunday, and neither of them had work. He watched her play, all the intensity flowing between her and the piano as if they were joined. A part of him worried if this breakthrough of hers had something to do with Nels Oleson.

How could it not? She had been her usual, timid self when he dropped her off yesterday, and when he picked her up in the evening, she was different, or rather, how she used to be, or even better. Samuel liked Nels and saw that he had a greatly positive influence on his niece; for a long while, he seemed to be one of the few people in town she would open up to.

But he also feared that the extra layer of emotion between them would cause everything to fall apart.

What's that man thinking? Samuel thought, sipping quietly on his coffee and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. It was obvious that Nels cared for Charlotte, as was evident by how he took such good care of her when she fell ill. He had even cared for Samuel when he was ill and Doctor Baker had to step out from time to time.

There was no doubting that he was a fine man, finer than most. But Samuel could see that there would be complications if things continued as they were. It wouldn't be half as troublesome if that man wasn't married. It wasn't as if his wife treated him well anyway, he pondered. But he supposed that didn't matter.

It reminded Samuel of a similar situation he found himself in when he was a young man. He had fallen deeply in love with a lady from Kentucky, a beautiful creature with red hair. He knew she had been married, but she insisted that her husband was out of her life.

And yet, one day, that husband came back one day from a long business trip, found them together, and shot Samuel with a revolver, thankfully only giving him a flesh wound in the thigh. He raced away on his horse and never saw that woman again. Josephine. Though he still often thought about her and what had become of her on that farm in Kentucky.

That incident taught Samuel that nothing good could come from getting involved with someone who was married, whether they were unhappily married or not. But maybe I'm getting too far ahead of myself, Samuel contemplated.

The other matter that bothered him was how much older Nels Oleson was than his niece. While Nels was more than a decade younger than Samuel, he was several decades older than Charlotte. He couldn't make out why Charlotte preferred him to a man her age.

Samuel had met the old beaux that his brother set up for her, and never had he seen her look at them the way she looked at Nels Oleson. Like he was made of something shiny and special. But it was true that he was one of the few who had not been deterred by the severity and constancy of her illnesses. Even many of Charlotte's platonic companions throughout her life, beginning in childhood, inevitably drifted away from her when they found she couldn't keep up with them.