The Secret Meeting (3)

The man who played the piano stood at the piano and looked around at the nuns, and naturally his eyes fell on Anna.

Anna was looking at him as he looked around, and her eyes were as sharp as an eagle's. Wasn't that the Count Antonio? Anna, who had been looking at him, dropped her eyes in a panic as she met his gaze, thinking he would not call out to her, but instead she heard him say in a low, serious voice, "I don't know any of the other nuns, so I'll find one I know, Anna, you play."

Anna panicked when she heard him say that he knew her and asked her to play the piano. Anna said hesitantly, "My Lord Count, I don't know how to play ..."

"Come here, I will teach you, it is not difficult to play the piano ..." said Antonio, looking at her with encouraging eyes.

Anna looked hesitantly at the Mother Superior, only to see her smile and say, "Sister Anna, don't be nervous, it seems that no one knows how to play anyway, someone has to be able to play in the future, go on, put your heart into it ..."

Anna slowly walked over to the piano as Antonio patiently demonstrated on the keys. Nimble fingers played do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si, do on the keys ... and then sat Anna on the stool to play them. Anna felt her hands stiffen to a point and played the notes awkwardly.

Antonio was surprised to find that Anna had long, white hands, as if she had been born for the piano, and her hands on the keys appeared to be in perfect harmony with the piano.

Anna tried her best to concentrate, but the pressure of Antonio's hand on hers, which was after all a man's hand, and the intimate contact between it and Anna's, made Anna, who was already nervous, feel even more restless, and her thoughts drifted off to some unknown place with the sound of the piano ...

In fact, she could not concentrate on the piano at all, she just felt her hand was being pressed against her and she suffered the painful feeling of her hand moving unnaturally on the keys because of his forcefulness.

Anna listened as the nuns sang hymns to the sound of the organ, which floated up into the night outside the window, her eyes fixed on the keys and her mind went blank ...

...

I don't know how long it took, but the time for playing the piano finally came to an end. Anna went back to her room, exhausted, and tried to fall back to sleep. But there was a knock at the door.

Anna got up and opened the door and found it was Sister Mary. So she said, "I wonder what Sister Mary wants from me at this late hour. ..."

Sister Mary said, "I have been asked by the Mother Superior to ask you when you would like to join the Sisters ..."

Anna, with her heavy head in her hands, confusedly shrugged off a question that had been hidden deep inside her for a long time: "Does joining the Sisters mean that you have to live in the convent for the rest of your life ..."

Sister Mary said, "Naturally, the convent is the home of the nuns ... To become a nun means to be a slave of God for the rest of your life, and when you become a nun, all you can do is to pray and ask God for help. If you pray faithfully, God will come to your aid, to your heart and to your body."

For some reason Anna was completely awakened by these words of Sister Mary. Prayer was the most tedious thing for Anna, how could she allow herself to do such a tedious thing for the rest of her life? Anna then blurted out, "I don't want to spend my life in a convent, I don't want to spend my life in prayer, I think there should be more meaningful things in this world, Sister Mary please tell me if there is another option for me ..."