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 Professor Roggenfeldt turned his calm blue eyes on the unexpected visitor and answered with a bow of acknowledgment:

"Oh, that is the local peasant band. The villagers form their own band and they play if one invites them. Once every summer they give a concert in that field and take a collection from the audience, and with the money they buy music and pay their expenses. But the visitors here don't often hire the band and they don't get much money at their annual concert. And yet they keep up their band from year to year, and it's a wonderfully good one for a country place."

"The villagers are very musical and have some education," said Madame Roggenfeldt. "They've even got their own theatre where the young people produce classical pieces quite passably."

"Thanks very much," replied the stranger. "But don't you think they play very strangely?"

Agnes Rudolfovna blushed slightly, smiled a little, and said quietly:

"No, I don't find it strange."

"Nor I either," said her husband.

"But," insisted the stranger, "don't you think that these people are just like wooden dolls and that they play without