Publisher's Synopsis
"I was at this time seventeen years old, and the very year of her death Mamma had intended to remove to the city, in order to introduce me into society. The loss of my mother had been a great sorrow to me; but I must confess that to this grief had been added another, that of seeing myself-young, beautiful as I heard from every one that I was, -condemned to vegetate during a second winter in the country, in a barren solitude. Even before the end of this winter, the feeling of regret, of isolation, and, to speak plainly, of ennui, had so gained upon me that I scarcely ever left my own room, never opened my piano, and never even took a book in my hand. If Macha urged me to occupy myself with something I would reply: "I do not wish to, I cannot," and far down in my soul a voice kept asking: "What is the use? Why "do something‟-no matter what-when the best of my life is wearing away so in pure loss? Why?" And to this "Why?" I had no answer except tears."
