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Show 84 "Well, it doesn't matter. On your paper, you wrote that you sometimes make up songs. I thought you might enjoy choosing one of the sonnets and setting it to music. They were originally sung, you know -- the ones first written by medieval poets. If you'd like to give it a try, I'll lend you my book of Shakespearean sonnets, which has all of them in it. You can pick whichever one you like and write music for it." She looked at him with such expectation that he dreaded what he had to tell her. "Miss Petrov, I don't know how to write down music." "You don't?" "No, ma'am. I can make up songs in my head, and I can pick out the tunes on the piano, but I can't write notes like in sheet music." "I see." To try to make amends for the disappointment he felt he must be causing her, Karl suggested, "I could write it down in do re mi fa sol, though. Would that be all right?" "Of course, Karl. Any way you wish. And there's no hurry -- just turn it in before the end of the first report card period. I'd like you to return the book just as soon as you've picked out a sonnet and copied it, though. The book doesn't belong to the school, it belongs to me, and it's very precious to me." After he'd left the school and reached the street, Karl raised the front cover of the book to look inside. On the title page, beneath the printed words "The Complete Book of Shakespearean Sonnets," was the handwritten inscription: 'For Yulyona Petrovna, from her loving brother Aleksei, January 7, 1908.' |
