I know I've been betrayed. I know it so well, and yet I can't stop screaming. Won't anybody listen to my plea? Does my marriage mean nothing to her? We were married, we swore an oath to each other! Since when has our contract been void of meaning? "Country marriage isn't real marriage," she said. And even then, why would she do this to me? She just went and left me for this white-haired prince. It's as if she never cared about me.

My piercing screams are so loud, but nobody even hears them because they're only on the inside. All they could possibly hear are the sounds of my piano. But is that enough to express my anger and despair? Is that truly enough?

She comes in. I must hold myself together.

"Get a grip, Roderich," Eliza tells me sternly. "I know you're hurt, but you're taking this too far. You've been playing piano the entire day. You haven't eaten; you haven't slept. You know perfectly well that my alliance with Gilbert is one of business, as it was with you. You know you couldn't have stayed here with me forever. You just weren't of any benefit to me anymore, sitting at home doing nothing and spending all our money and irritating all the neighbors with your piano playing. You knew you had to go, right? This just wasn't working."

I cannot control myself. I want to tell her how much I've suffered, how she's used our alliance for her own benefit, letting me slip, and all this time, she let me believe that I meant something to her. My fingers are moving by themselves and I barely hear my own playing, even though it grows louder, louder... But it's the only thing keeping me together. It's the only thing holding my heart away from insanity.

But then he comes in, as if on cue, and he laughs at my playing, and he sings off-key and out of rhythm and his voice echoes in all the wrong directions.

"Well, since you're leaving, I guess we don't need this!" He walks to the piano and I am still playing, because it's the one thing I can do to ignore him, and I shouldn't care less what he is doing while I smash my fingers against the keys. This is my form of violence, a healthy substitute. But then before I can register what is happening, suddenly he is standing right on top of my piano, jumping and laughing and I hear breaking sounds and I keep playing. My fingers are bleeding slightly. They don't hurt, though. I guess I'm no longer so sensitive to pain. But the true pain is the one in my chest, eating at me as Gilbert Beilschmidt destroys the one thing I had left... No, not quite the only thing... There was one other.

I have to pretend. It is the only way for this to... I still can't think properly, but luckily I am too shocked to scream.

"I... I understand..." I manage to mutter. "This... business matter... is more important, of course. I know about... business... I am an orderly person myself, no, I never saw our union as an emotional one, did I? It was just... just a union... Just a temporary union... I will be on my way out then. Just let me say goodbye to the children first."

And she seems relieved, and she leads me to the little Italian boys. Oh, how Eliza adored those boys. I always thought I did too. But when I see them now, all I feel is a dark grey feeling in my stomach, like a hole, or a piece of rotten flesh. She loved them. She never loved me; perhaps she never loved Gilbert. She loved those children. The favorite one, especially the favorite one...

"Papa, what's the matter?" chirps the favorite one, while the other one scowls. My body has gone numb and I can't move for a moment. I look down and see that my right hand is stained with blood. Something sharp has been digging into my palm. Then I realize I'm still holding a scrap of the destroyed piano.

I slowly raise my hand, but then little Feli says "Papa?" again. His voice is trembling. I hesitate. Then I make a decision. I call Eliza over.

"Eliza," I say. My voice has grown strangely clear. "Elisaveta. There is something I need to show you before I depart."

And when she walks towards me, full of doubt, I lift up dear Feli and embrace him. Then I plunge the piano piece into his heart, right before her eyes.

I look into her face for one more second and smile politely. Still holding Feli's bleeding body, I turn from her and head out the door. The sun is shining. Perhaps she will kill me now. I don't know what she will do, but I am not worried. In fact, I feel invincible. For the first time in my life, I possess some of that self-confidence I always envied in Gilbert. I feel like a god.