The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

The piano is the central symbol of Agnes DeWitt’s passionate inner life, representing her artistic soul and sensuality, as well as the romantic love that she must sacrifice to become Father Damien. Before the flood, the piano is the primary medium for her most profound spiritual connections. From her ecstatic playing of Chopin during her convent days to her passionate love affair with Berndt Vogel, she fully embraces her musical talent in the most sensual ways, creating charged performances that merge the erotic with the aesthetic. When Agnes sits naked at the piano and plays for Berndt, she gives him the gift of showing him the most honest and vulnerable expression of her identity. As Agnes’s skilled fingers caress the keys “with the simplicity of water” (21), this moment reveals the piano as an extension of her body—the site where her spirit, her sexuality, and her artistic identity combine into one indivisible force.

The piano’s destruction in the flood therefore symbolizes the death of this version of Agnes. As it sinks into the river, so too does the passionate, artistic woman who defined herself by her connection to her music. However, this loss stands as a crucial sacrifice required for her transformation, and only when she has mastered the ascetic male identity of Father Damien does she finally regain her memory of the protagonist’s talents.