Asbeïn: From the Life of a Virtuoso

by Ossip Schubin

SECOND BOOK.

They trifled away the summer on the Italian coast and in Switzerland. In the autumn Lensky made a concert tour through Germany and the Netherlands, on which his young wife accompanied him, and attempted with humorous zeal to accustom herself to the role of an artist's wife. In the beginning of December Lensky and she came to St. Petersburg. The residence had been prepared for the young pair by a friend of Natalie. Natalie made a discontented face when she entered her new kingdom. How new, how glaring, how unsuitable and tasteless everything looked. "It is as if one bit into a green apple," said she; and turning to Lensky she added, gayly, with a shrug of her shoulders: "The stupid Annette did not know any better; but do not trouble yourself. In a couple of weeks it will be different. You shall see how comfortably I will cushion your nest. You must feel happy in it, my restless eagle, or else you will fly away from me. What?"

She said this, smiling in proud consciousness of his passionate love. What pleasure would it give him to fly away? And teasingly, jestingly, she pushed back the thick hair from his temples.

Ah, how pleasant and yet tantalizing was the touch of her slender, delicate fingers, which made him at once nervous and happy! As he expressed it, it "almost made him jump out of his skin with rapture." At first he let her continue her foolish, tender playfulness to her heart's content; then he laughingly put himself on the defensive, preached a more dignified manner to her, and when she did not yield, but gayly continued her lovely, teasing ways, he at length seized her violently by both wrists and quite crushed her hands with kisses.

If in the first weeks of their married life both had been quite solemn, thoughtful, and confused in their manner to each other, now they often frolicked together like two gay children.

While he took up again his long-interrupted duties at the Petersburg Conservatory, she built him "his nest." She did not go lavishly to work. Oh, no! She knew that one must not press down a young artist with the burden of material cares. She imagined she was very economical. She did not cease to wonder over the cheapness with which she could get everything that was needed, beginning with the flowers--flowers in winter, in St. Petersburg! He never enlightened her as to how much the footing on which she maintained her "simple household" surpassed his present circumstances.

Every time that he came home he found a new, attractive change. She accomplished great things in artistic arrangement of the so-called "confused style," which at that time was not so common as to-day, but was still a bold innovation.

"C'est tres joli, mais un peu trop touffu," said he to her once when she met him, quite particularly conscious of victory and awaiting praise, with the knowledge of a new, costly improvement in the arrangement of the drawing-room.

"Yes, my love; but a drawing-room is neither an official audience-room nor a gymnasium," replied she, somewhat offended.

"Nor a ball-room nor riding-school," completed he, jestingly; "but--h'm--still one should be able to move in it. Do you not think so?"

"That is as one looks at it. I have nothing to do with it if you cannot brandish around too freely in it."

* * * * * *

They went out in society quite frequently--in Natalie's society. That many people, especially Natalie's near relations, made comments on the marriage of the spoiled child of a prince with a violinist is easily understood. But scarcely had they seen Boris and his young wife together a few times when the comments ceased. A full, true, young human happiness always causes respect, and, like every achievement, bears its triumphant justification in itself. The leader of fashion, Princess Lydia Petrovna B., declared publicly, and, indeed, in the highest court circles, that in her opinion Natalie had acted very wisely.

Countess Sophie Dimitrievna went a step further when she energetically declared that she envied Natalie. From that time every one vied in fêting the young couple and distinguishing them.

They both enjoyed society, but the best part of it was not entering the brilliantly illuminated reception-rooms or being surrounded by wondering strangers. Oh, no! the best of all was the last quarter of an hour before they left their home, when Lensky, already in evening dress, entered the dressing-room of his young wife. Each time he felt anew the same pleasant excitement when he, slowly turning the knob, after a teasing, "May I come in, Natalie?" entered the cosey room. How charming and attractive everything was there! The room with the light carpet and the comfortable, not too numerous articles of cretonne-upholstered furniture; the two tiny gold-embroidered slippers on the rough bear-skin in front of the lounge; not far off, Natalie's house-dress, thrown over a chair, exhaling the warmth of her young, fresh, fragrant personality. Then there on the toilet-table, with clouds of white muslin over the pink lining, and with sparkling silver and crystal utensils, a pretty confusion of half-opened white lace boxes, and on the table dark velvet jewel-cases. The pleasant, mild, and still bright light of many pink wax-candles, which stood about in high, heavy silver candelabra, and the warm, strange, seductive atmosphere which filled the whole room--an atmosphere which was permeated with the fragrance of greenhouse flowers, burning wax-candles, and the pleasant, subtle, spicy Indian perfume which clung to all Natalie's effects.

And there, before the tall cheval-glass, Natalie, already in evening toilet, almost ready, her beautiful arms hanging down in pampered helplessness; behind her a maid, just finished fastening her corsage, and a second, with a three-branched candelabra in her hand, throwing the light upon her mistress.

Was that really his wife? This splendid, queenly being in the white silk dress--she wore white silk in preference--really the wife of the violinist, in whose life, not so far back, lay all kind of need, humiliation, trouble of all kind?

Then she looked around. She had a charming manner of holding her small hands half against her cheeks, half against her neck, and turning slowly from the glass and looking at him with lowered eyelids, and a kind of mischievously proud and yet tenderly suppressed consciousness of victory. "Are you satisfied, Boris?"

What could he answer?

"You come just as if called," then said she. "You shall put the hair-pins in my hair. Katia is so awkward." Then she sat down in a low chair, and handed him the hair-pins. They were wonderful hair-pins, the heads of which were narcissi formed of diamonds, a bridal present from Lensky. He took them with gentle fingers, and the celebrated artist was proud if his young wife praised him for the taste with which he fastened her diamonds in her hair.

* * * * * *

"Natalie!" exclaimed Boris, in a tone of the greatest surprise--a surprise made up of the greatest astonishment and not of joy--"you here?"

It was in his study, and nine o'clock in the morning. At this hour, daily, in crying opposition to his former proverbial unreliability, he had long been sitting at his writing-table. But that Natalie should leave her bedroom before ten o'clock had hitherto been an unheard-of occurrence.

But to-day, just as he was about to go to the piano, to try on that modest representative of an orchestra a completed musical phrase, he discovered her. Quite unobserved, she had mischievously crept in, and now crouched comfortably in a large arm-chair, which formed a very picturesque frame for her silk wrapper, bordered with black fur. She sat on one foot; one tiny gold-embroidered Caucasian slipper lay before her on the floor, and she smiled tenderly at her husband with her great, proud eyes. But the pride disappeared from her glance at his ejaculation, an ejaculation which expressed so much perplexity, so little joy. She started and, embarrassed, reached out for her slipper with the tip of her foot.

"Do I disturb you?" she asked, anxiously. "Must I go?"

Formerly he could not bear to have any one about him when he worked. His face wore a forced, smiling expression, while he assured her:

"Oh, not in the slightest--pray sit down." Whereupon he pushed his chair up to hers.

"Oh, if you are going to treat me so!" said she.

"How, then?" asked he.

"Like--like any visitor," she burst out, and hastened to the door. He brought her back. Then he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

"But what is the matter?"

"I am ashamed of my intrusion, that is all. Adieu--I will not disturb you further!"

With that she wished to free herself from him. But that was not so easy. He took her, struggling in his arms like a child, and carried her back by force to the immense chair which they had left. "So now, sit there, and don't spoil my mood, you witch. Why should I not enjoy your company for a little? Do you think, then, that I am not glad to see you? But you do not expect that I should bend over the table, and spoil paper, while a charming little woman sits behind me? The temptation to talk to you is too great."

She shook her head. "You wish to be good to me, but you pain me," murmured she. And she added, flatteringly, "Can you really not work when I am with you?"

"Would you like it if I could?" he asked, and looked at her with a quite new, penetrating expression in his eyes.

He drew his brows together humorously; he was now kneeling before her, and held both her hands in his. "You are not only a charming little woman, Natalie," said he, "but, what very few such beautiful and seductive women are, of a good heart. But still I have noticed one thing in you, namely, that you do not like to be second anywhere. And, do you see, everywhere else you are not only the first, but the only one in the world for me; but here, Natalie, here it must please you that I should forget you for my art!"

"And do you think that I would wish it otherwise?" said she, and there was an earnest, solemn expression in her eyes which he never forgot. "Oh, you blind one, you do not yet know me at all. Do not kneel there like a hero in a romance; in the long run, it looks not only awkward but uncomfortable. Sit down by me--there is room enough in this immense chair for us both. So! and now--now I will confess to you what I have already so long had on my heart. Do you see, you love me, I do not doubt that, how should I? but--do not be angry with me--sometimes I wish that you loved me differently; I wish to be not only your petted wife, your plaything----"

"My plaything!" he interrupted her, very reproachfully. "Oh, Natalie! my sanctuary!"

"Well, then, as far as I am concerned, your sanctuary. That, looked at in one light, is also only a plaything, even if of the most distinguished kind." She laughed somewhat constrainedly. "It is certainly immoderate," she continued, and hesitated a little, "horribly immoderate, but still it is so--I--I do not want to be only your plaything, but also your friend--do not be horrified at this audacity--yes, your friend, your confidante. I wish to be the first to share your newly arising thoughts. Lately, it has often hurt me that you busy yourself so much with all kinds of trifles only to give me pleasure. I know it is my fault; at first I was afraid of your genius, which soared heavenward, and wished to accustom you to the earth, and chain you close to me. But then--then I was ashamed of my smallness--ah, so ashamed. You shall not stoop down to me; let me try to rise to you. Spread out your mighty wings, and fly up to the stars, but take me with you!"

He could not speak--only kisses burned on his lips. He pressed them on her wonderful eyes, whose holy light humiliated him. Then, after a while, he murmured, softly: "You are nearer the stars than I, Natalie. Show me the way, show me the way!"

* * * * * *

From then, she daily passed a couple of hours in his study. How happy she felt in the great, airy room, which was almost as empty as a shed. In here she had not ventured with her soft, seductive, decorative arts. All had remained as sober and plain as he had always been accustomed to have his surroundings while at work. High shelves almost breaking under their weight of music, a piano, a couple of stringed instruments, the arm-chair in which he had established her, and two or three cane-bottomed chairs constituted the whole furniture. On the writing-table stood a picture of Natalie, painted in water-colors by a young French artist in Rome. The room could show no other ornament. Still, there in the darkest corner hung a single laurel-wreath. No large one, such as one lays to-day at the feet of great artists, but poor and small, and in the middle of the wreath, in a common wooden frame, drawn with a hard lead-pencil, the face of a woman, with a white cloth on her head, from beneath which fine, curly hair fell over the forehead. Without being beautiful, the face was strangely attractive, and Natalie would have liked to ask the history of the laurel-wreath and the picture. But she did not venture to. She never, by a single question, touched upon Lensky's past.

He only continued to remain in solitude during the hours which he devoted to technical practice. At other times he quietly let her stay. She sat behind him, quite soberly and still, in the large, worn-out patriarchal chair, and did not breathe a word. She never even took a book in her hand, for fear of irritating him by the rattling of turning pages, but busied herself with pretty, noiseless handiwork.

The feeling of her presence was unendingly sweet to him. His whole activity was increased; he worked more intently than formerly. A fulness of music vibrated in his head and heart. And if the inward vibrations became too dreamily sweet, too luxuriant and exuberant, he stopped writing, sat awhile in silence, and then, without taking the slightest notice of Natalie, walked up and down a couple of times, hummed something to himself, made a sweeping gesture, in conclusion took up the violin--then----

Natalie raised her head and listened--how wonderful that sounded! He had unlearned the madness, but still in his melodies always sounded the strange Arabian succession of tones, the devil's music: Asbeïn!

She became, as she had wished, the confidante of his work. When he had sketched on paper the plan of a composition, he played it to her, now on his violin, which he passionately loved, now on the piano, which he did not love; for its short tone, incapable of development, repulsed him, but which he respected and made use of as the most complete of all instruments. Although he played the piano, not with virtuosity, but with the helplessness of the composer, he could still bring out something of the "warm tone" which made his violin irresistible.

How eagerly she listened to his compositions! How much she rejoiced in them, and how severe she was to him! She would not let him pass over a single musical flaw. That she rejoiced and wept over the beauties in his compositions, that she boldly placed his genius near Beethoven and Schumann, that is to say, near what she ranked highest in the world, that was another thing! For that reason she was so severe. He laughed at her sometimes for her tender delusion. Then she took his head between her hands, and said, triumphantly: "That is all very well; only wait a little while, then the whole world will say that you have been the last musical poet: the others are only bunglers."

* * * * * *

In the beginning of March he made a short artist tour through the interior of Russia. Naturally, he could not drag her around with him, for she could not endure the exhausting fatigues of his quick journeys, especially at that time. But how horrible, how unbearable the parting seemed to him! He wrote her every day. His writing was ugly and irregular, his orthography as deficient in French as in Russian; but what tenderness, what passion and poetry spoke from every uncultured, stormily written line. No one could better impress his whole heart in a short, insignificant letter than he; and what rapture, what wild, almost painful rapture at seeing her again! She had missed him much less than he had missed her. He reproached her for it, complained that the new love which now began to fill her whole existence left no place for the old. But then she measured him with such a tender, and, at the same time, a so deeply hurt look, that he was ashamed.

"You must not take it so," he whispered to her, appeasingly. "It is an old story that if two hearts hasten forward together in a race of love, one will naturally outdo the other, and still will be vexed that it is so. But it is quite natural and in order that I should cling more to you than you to me."

She smiled quite sadly. "We will see who will win the race in the end," murmured she.

* * * * * *

Natalie no longer went into society. Her health was much impaired. She passed the entire month of April stretched on her lounge, in loose wrappers. She now reproached herself with having been foolish not to have spared herself before. The time of tormenting fancy approached for the young wife, the time of concealed anxiety for them both. In spite of the consoling assurances of the physician, Lensky was no longer himself, from anxiety and despair. But he did not let her notice it. When he was with her he had always a gay smile on his lips and a droll story for her diversion. He cared for her like a mother.

Then, toward the end of May, came the most tormenting hour he had ever lived through, until at last--when he already believed that all hope was lost--a little, thin, shrill sound smote his ear. It startled him, his heart beat loudly; still he did not venture to move, but listened, until at last the doctor came out of the adjoining room, and called to him: "All is over."

He misunderstood the words. "She is dead!" he gasped.

"No, no! Boris Nikolaivitch; everything is as well as possible. Come!"

He felt as would a man buried alive, if one should raise the lid from his coffin.

At the door of the bedroom a fat old woman, with a large cap, came toward him. "A son, a very fine young one!" said she, triumphantly, while she laid something tiny and rosy, wrapped in white cloth and lace, in his arms.

Tears fell from his eyes, and his hands trembled so that the nurse was horrified and took the child away from him.

He went up to Natalie, who, deathly pale and exhausted, but with a lovely, indescribable expression on her face, at once of tenderness and of a certain solemn pride, lay among the high-piled pillows. Quite softly, with a kind of timidity which his violent love had hitherto never known, he pressed her pale hand to his lips.

"Are you content?" she whispered, dreamily and scarcely audibly. "Are you content?"

* * * * * *

She recovered rapidly. Her beauty had lost none of its charm, but had rather won an earnest--one might almost say consecrated--loveliness.

Her face reflected her happiness. That also had become a shade deeper, nobler. In spite of all her pampered habits, she insisted upon caring for the child herself. He let her have her way.

The former dressing-room was changed to a nursery. Sometimes, in the long, transparent twilight of the spring, he entered the room in which, in winter, he had passed so many charming hours by candle-light, and where now everything was so changed. A cradle stood in the place which formerly the toilet-table had occupied--ah, what a cradle--a dream of a cradle! A basket with a canopy of green silk, hung with a long, transparent lace veil, a costly nest for a young bird whose little eyes must be shielded, by all kinds of tender devices, from the bright light, which perhaps later would pain him so!

The air, quite filled with a pleasant, mild, damp vapor, was permeated by a weak perfume of iris and warming linen, and, besides that, with something quite strange, quite peculiarly sweet, stirring--the breath of a healthy, fresh, carefully cared-for little child.

And there, where the cheval-glass had formerly reflected to him the lovely form of a proud queen of beauty, now sat in the same large arm-chair, a tender young mother, her child on her breast. The lines of her neck, from which the loose, white dress had slipped down a little so that the outline of the shoulders was visible, was charming; but what was it, to the lovely, attentive expression with which she looked down at the child?

Everything about her expressed tenderness: her look, her smile, the hands with which she held the child to her. It was just these small, white hands which Lensky could not cease to observe. How helpless they had formerly been--and now! She would scarcely let the nurse touch baby. He was never weary of watching how untiringly she touched the tiny, frail body of the infant, and did a thousand services for it which all resembled caresses.

* * * * * *

"It is all very beautiful, but you have a manner of ignoring me in this little kingdom," said Lensky, jokingly, to the young mother, while he threw a look of humorous vexation at the young despot whom she just laid in the cradle.

She bent her head a little to one side, and whispered roguishly, while she came up to him and played with the lapel of his coat: "Do you see, Boris, this is my study. Everywhere else you are not only the first but the only one in the world for me; but here you must be content if I sometimes forget you for my calling."

He laughed.

"Do you know that you once said something similar to me; that time when I, for the first time, dared to enter your sanctuary?" she murmured, and repeated petulantly: "Do you know it?"

He kissed both of her hands, one after the other. "Do you then believe that I could ever forget such a thing, my angel?" whispered he. "I am no such spendthrift; oh, no! If you knew how I cherish this dear remembrance! That is pure happiness which we will keep for our old days, when the sun no longer seems to us to shine as brightly, and we must light a poor candle in order to find our path again to a suitable grave."

* * * * * *

Natalie still thought of the poor laurel wreath in his study. But she did not venture to ask him a direct question about it.

He himself, of his own accord, at last told her the history of the pitiful relic.

He had never spoken to her of his childhood, but once a great impulse came over him to tell her the whole; to lay bare before her all the pitiableness of his past. What would she then say to it?

It was a clear summer night, out on the terrace of the country house near St. Petersburg, which they had hired for the summer, the terrace which looked out on the small but pretty and shady garden. They sat there, hand in hand; around them the dull, gray light of a day that will not die, sweet perfume of flowers, and in the tree tops the gentle rustling of the kissing leaves. She talked of gay, insignificant things; gave him a droll, laughing description of a visit to one of her friends. At first it amused him; then something, he could not have said what, irritated him against this monstrous principle of gliding so triflingly and mockingly through life without ever glancing into it more deeply.

"What would she say if she knew?" thought he. "Perhaps she would shun me!" A kind of madness overcame him. He felt the wish to risk his happiness in order to convince himself of its durability, to put his petted wife to the test. "How you butterflies, floating over flowers in the sunshine, must be horrified at the miserable worms who creep over the earth!" he began bitterly.

"What are you thinking of?" asked she, astonished.

"Nothing especial, only that I was originally just such a worm, creeping over the earth."

"Ah! that is long past!" she interrupted him hastily. She wished to keep him from long dwelling on an unpleasant thought, but he suspected that his insinuation of his humble antecedents vexed her, and that she felt the need of forgetting his derivation. He looked at her from head to foot, with an angry, wondering glance. Her richly embroidered white dress, the large diamonds in her ears,--how the diamonds sparkled in the dull evening light!

Then he began to speak of his childhood, dryly, with a smile on his lips as if it was a question of something quite indifferent and amusing.

In a large tenement at Moscow, overcrowded with all kinds of human vermin, had he grown up; in the half of a room that was divided by a sail, behind which another poor family hungered. His father he did not remember. His mother sang to the guitar in wine rooms. When he was five years old she had bought him a fiddle for four rubles, and then some one, a dissolute musician, who often came to them, had taught him to scrape on it a little. From that time he accompanied his mother when she sang in the wine rooms,--or even on the streets, as it happened.

She had been pretty; the drawing which hung in the laurel wreath, and which an artist in their horrible dwelling-place had made of her, was like her. Only she had quite unusually beautiful teeth which one could not see in the picture. He remembered these teeth very well, because she laughed so much, especially if there was little to eat and she made him take it all, and declared she had spoiled her appetite at a friend's house with fresh pirogj. Once the thought had occurred to him that she only said so because there was not enough for two, and then he could not eat anything more. If there was nothing at all to eat, either for him or for her, she told him a story.

Had he loved her? Yes, he believed so--how could it be otherwise? But the consciousness of what she really had been to him only came to him when he was no longer with her. How that happened he really did not know, but one fine day she took him in a part of the city which he had never known until then, in a handsome residence that seemed so beautiful to him that he only ventured to go around on tiptoes. At the door a fat, yellow man, with long, greasy, black hair, received him, and told his mother it was all right. Then she kissed him a last time, told him she would take him away in an hour, and went.

He was taken in a room with gay furniture, and there greeted by a fat woman with a thick gold chain over the bosom of her violet silk dress, and with rings on all her short, stumpy, wrinkled fingers, and was entertained with tea, cake, and honey. He had never before enjoyed a similar repast. He felt in an elevated frame of mind.

When the fat man--he was a mediocre musician who had married a rich merchant's daughter, who gave him none of her money, however--told him that he should always stay with him, and never go back to his mother, he was glad, and felt the consciousness of having taken a step forward in the world.

Did that surprise Natalie? He could not help it, it was still so. "Strange what roughness men show before a little bit of civilization has taught them to conceal it," he added reflectively.

Did he not feel anxiety later? Natalie wished to know. Yes, for his new life contained nothing of that which he had promised himself. That he should live in the beautiful rooms with the master and mistress and eat with them, as he had thought at first, had been an illusion. Only the two children of the fat daughter of the merchant could tumble around on the sofas, with their fiery-red, woolen, damask covering, and could help themselves from all the dishes.

He lived on charity; they told him that every day. The musician had bought him of his mother for fifty rubles, as Lensky afterward learned, as a speculation, in order to make money out of him as a prodigy. The time which he did not devote to his musical practice he must spend helping the maid in the kitchen.

He slept, with an old sofa pillow under his head, on the floor, in a gloomy little room, without window, only with dirty panes of glass in the door--a room in which the cook put all kinds of rubbish. Dampness ran down the walls, and every evening from all corners crept out a whole regiment of black beetles, and spread themselves over the boards. The food? Well, it was sparing. Sometimes he only received what the family had left on their plates.

Was he not angry at this treatment? No. He found it quite in order at that time. The well-fed, warmly dressed people impressed him, especially the cap of Vauvara Ivanovna--that was the name of his mistress. He felt a respectful shudder pass over him every time he saw this structure of blonde, red flowers, and green ribbon. Except the Kremlin, nothing impressed him so much as this house.

When the whole family, in festival attire, went to church on Sunday, he stood at the door, quite oppressed by the feeling of modest wonder, and looked after the well-dressed, well-fed people. He did his best to make himself useful and agreeable, and to please them. Yes, he was just so small and pitiable, as a half-starved six-year-old pigmy. And then, in conclusion, one day he simply could bear it no longer and ran back to his mother. He found the way. With that quite animal sense of locality and traces, which only children of the lowest classes of men have, he found it. His mother was at home; she was frightened when she saw him. Had they turned him out? Yes, she was frightened. In the first moment she was frightened; then--here Lensky stammered in his confession--naturally she was glad; for, what use of losing words?--naturally she was glad. How she kissed him and caressed him with her poor, rough, toil-worn, and still such gentle, warm hands. He still felt her hands sometimes on him, in dreams, especially behind his ears and on his neck. Then she fed him. She spread a red and white flowered cloth over the table in his honor, and after that she gave him a holy picture. Then she said it could not be otherwise; he must go back to Simon Ephremitsch; it was for his own good. When he had become a great artist, then he would come to fetch her in a coach with four horses.

That impressed him. And in order to calm him completely, she promised to visit him very soon.

But she did not come; and when he ran back to her, after about a month, she was no longer in her old abode; he never found her! Soon afterward she sent him two pretty little shirts, delicately embroidered in red and blue. But she herself did not come. Never!

At his first appearance in public--he had performed his piece with the anxious assiduity of a little monkey that fears a blow, he asserted--to his great astonishment, he was applauded. In the midst of the hand-clapping he suddenly heard a sob. He was convinced that his mother had been at the concert.

At the conclusion they handed him a laurel wreath, the same which now hung in his room; quite a poor woman had brought it, they said. He guessed immediately that the wreath came from his mother; and suddenly, just as a couple of music-lovers had stepped on the stage, in order to see the wonderful little animal near by, he began to stamp his feet and clench his fists, to scream and to sob, until every one crowded around him. His principal threatened him with blows; a very pretty young lady in a blue-silk dress took him on her lap to quiet him; but all was of no use.

He saw his mother once more--in her coffin.

His benefactor told him that she was dead, and that, after all, it was suitable that he should show her the last honors. The coffin stood on a table, surrounded by thin, poorly-burning candles, and she lay within, so small and thin, her hands folded on her breast, in a poor shroud, that they had bought ready made for a few copecks.

In the beginning, Natalie had interrupted him with questions, but now she had long been silent. He looked at her challengingly, at every pitiful, repulsive detail, especially if it brought forward a trace of his own insignificance. It was quite as if he expressly tried to pain her. But when he came to speak of the death of his mother, whose form, in the midst of his glaring, sharp description, he drew so tenderly and vaguely, obliterating everything disturbing, as if he saw her, in remembrance, only through tears, he closed his eyes.

Suddenly he heard near him a suppressed sound of pain, then something like the falling of the over-abundant load of blossoms from a tree among whose spring adornment there yet moves no breath of air.

He started, looked up--there was Natalie on her knees before him, the beauty, the queenly, proud one, and had embraced him with both arms, as if she would shield him from all the woes of earth, and sobbed as if she could not console herself for his past suffering.

"Natalie! my angel, do you really love me so?"

"One cannot love you enough, or recompense you enough for all that you have missed," whispered she.

And he had really for one moment suspected that----

He raised her on his knees. They did not speak another word. Through the garden at their feet the birches rustled in the mild night breeze, and from the distance one heard the sad voice of a marsh bird, who with heavy beating wings flew to the neighboring pond.

The most beautiful love will always be that which has been sanctified by a great compassion. In that mild summer night, while all around them was fragrance and veiled light, Natalie's love had received its consecration.

* * * * * *

Three, four years passed; a second little child lay in the pretty, veiled cradle, from which little Nikolai first made his solemn observation of the world--a dear little plump maiden, whom they baptized Mascha, after the grandmother, and whom Boris particularly idolized. There was still nothing to report of Natalie's married life but love, happiness, and beauty. Lensky kept every unpleasant impression far from her, surrounded her with the most touching care, overwhelmed her with the most poetic attentions. Her life at his side unrolled itself like a long, secret, passionate love-poem.

Natalie's family had reconciled themselves to her marriage. Even for the wise and arrogant Sergei Alexandrovitch it had the appearance that he had been mistaken in his discouraging prediction, as happens even to the wisest men, if with their predictions they have only the sober probability in view, without thinking of the possibility of some underlying miracle. After four years of married life Natalie was as happy as a bride.

Still, Lensky's happiness was not as unclouded as that of his wife. A great unpleasantness became ever more significant to him, the quite universal coldness of his artistic relations.

It would be wrong to believe that Natalie, with systematic jealousy, had wished to estrange him from the world of artists. On the contrary, she had complied with his wish to make her acquainted with his colleagues and their families, had herself asked it of him, flatteringly.

The world of artists interested her. There, everything was more animated, more meaning, than the eternal sameness of good society which she knew by heart, quite by heart, she assured him tenderly. She made it her ambition to win his acquaintances for hers. But strangely enough, in spite of all her seductive loveliness, she succeeded only very incompletely.

She had already known the élite among the artists. There is nothing further to be said of her relations with these favored of the gods, exceptional existences, than that she always felt honored by intercourse with them, and pleased, and that, when with them she ever vexed herself over the worn-out old commonplace, that one should avoid the acquaintance of famous men in order to prevent disappointment--a commonplace which was probably invented for the consolation of those who, in advance, are excluded from intercourse with celebrities. That Natalie always succeeded in winning the sympathies of these exceptional natures stands for itself.

But when it was a question of that great crowd of artists, of the mixture of sickly vanity, embarrassed affairs, depressing relations, etc., then it was hard to build up a friendship between Lensky's wife and his old colleagues.

Envy of Lensky, envy which had reference largely to his artistic results, and in a less degree to his marriage and social position, peeped out everywhere from these people, and had its own results in soon completely embittering the not very pleasant relations between them and Natalie.

In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly manner, they only met her in quite modestly circumstanced families--families of a few true artists who yet could accomplish nothing with their work but to honestly and poorly provide for their seven or eight children. Families of simple people, who had formerly been good to Lensky in the difficult beginning of his career, and to whom he always showed the most faithful adherence, the most prodigal generosity. She also felt happy among these plain people.

What wonder that these people would all have gone through fire for him! They would also have all given of their best for Natalie, whom without envy they worshipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They rejoiced that Lensky, their pride, their idol, possessed such a beautiful and distinguished wife--in their eyes the daughter of the emperor would not have been too good for him.

Natalie thanked them for their great attachment, as well as she could; she reckoned it a special favor to receive these modest people in her home, to invite them with their wives and children, to entertain them with distinction, to stuff all the children's pockets full of bonbons, and give them little parting presents.

But intercourse with these poor devils was in reality only a sentimental game, even as intercourse with the artistic élite was nothing but an ideal recreation. Neither the one nor the other sufficed to firmly knit the band between Lensky's wife and his former world, or to keep up his popularity in that world.

* * * * * *

Of all the opposition and difficulty which would arise therefrom for Lensky's future and especially for his yet to be won future as composer, Natalie still suspected nothing. For her, the whole heaven was still blue.

Then the first deep shadow fell on her happiness. Lensky, to whom every long separation from her was unbearable, when he undertook a long tour through central Europe, in spite of her express request, could not resolve to leave her behind with the children, in St. Petersburg. The little children were left under the care of their grandmother.

For the first time, Natalie was no amusing, but a dull and nervous, travelling companion. An unbearable anxiety followed her like a foreboding. All his attempts to console her were in vain.

In Dusseldorf, she received, by telegraph, the news that little Mascha was ill with diphtheria. When she arrived in Petersburg, half dead from anxiety and breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin.

He was almost as desperate as she. He overwhelmed himself with self-reproaches;--who knows, if they had watched the child better, if they had thought of this or that in caring for it.... What torment, to be obliged to say that to one's self! A reproach never passed her lips, she even concealed her tears lest they should sadden him. But from that unhappiness on, something in her formerly so elastic nature, so capable of resistance, was broken forever. The first jubilant time of their marriage was at an end.

* * * * * *

Together with the evermore unpleasant friction with his colleagues, and the great pain for his lost child, still another worry announced itself to Lensky--something gnawing, and incessantly tormenting: a daily increasing money embarrassment. Natalie decidedly spent too much, but quite naïvely, with the firm conviction that she could not exist more economically; wherefore it was doubly hard for him to be finally obliged to tell her that he could not raise the money to continue the household on the footing to which she had been accustomed.

It was quite touching to see how frightened she was when he made her the first communication in reference to it--frightened, not at the prospect of having to save, but only at the thoughtlessness by which she had burdened Lensky with cares. She immediately showed herself ready for the most exaggerated reforms. But to live with his wife like a proletary, in St. Petersburg, among her brilliant relations and friends, he could not bring himself to do.

In the autumn of the same year, he moved with his family to ----, a large German capital, where he had accepted the direction of a significant musical undertaking.

But here the conflict between his artistic and family life which had arisen through his alliance with Natalie, came to light with more detestable clearness.

He was in his element, as an artist whose powers have found a wide, noble sway.

The great musical undertaking, at whose head they had placed him, flourished wonderfully under his lead. The fiery earnestness with which he undertook it won him all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere in ---- was sympathetic to him for other reasons. He had a crowd of old connections there, acquaintances of his first virtuoso period, people who surrounded him, distinguished him, with whom he could speak of his art--which always remained sacred and earnest to him, and never, for him, deteriorated to a more or less noble means of earning his living, or to a social pedestal--in quite a different manner than with the elegant dilettantis who had gradually crowded out every other society from his house in St. Petersburg. They gave one artistic festival after the other in his honor, and all this entertained him.

His wife appeared with him a couple of times on such occasions, then she excused herself--she had no pleasure in them. She felt isolated, an insurmountable home-sickness tormented her.

Without confessing it, for the first time since her marriage the position which she occupied with Lensky angered her.

In St. Petersburg she had always remained with him the Princess Assanow, he had ascended to her world; here she must suddenly satisfy herself with his world. She was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek in this world all the true interest, earnestness, and nobility that were to be found therein.

She had intimate intercourse only with an old friend of her youth, a certain Countess Stolnitzky, who went out but little and consequently had time enough for Natalie.

Lensky begged Natalie to open her drawing-room one or two evenings a week, that is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing-room became a meeting-place for all kinds of artistic leaders, among which the dramatic element formed the principal contingent, and this chiefly because Lensky wished to have an opera performed.

For him, intercourse with dramatic artists had no unpleasantness; he had been accustomed to it from youth. But it became unpleasant to Natalie after she had satisfied that superficial curiosity which every woman living in severely exclusive circles feels concerning these theatrical people.

The only people that were still more unpleasant to Natalie, in her drawing-room, than this crowd of people still smelling of freshly washed-off paint, were the aristocrats who came there to meet the artists. And many of these came--very many, all who coquetted with a little bit of musical interest--yes, and many others. "Very interesting, these soirées at Lensky's," they always said, when these were spoken of; "very interesting; they always have very good music there, and then one meets a crowd of amusing people whom one never sees anywhere else. And the wife is really charming--quite comme il faut."

"She is a Russian princess," a foreigner interrupted, who belonged to the diplomatic corps.

The native women turned up their noses repellently. They placed no great confidence in the distinction of Russian princesses who married artists.

Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted prejudices that she greeted the ladies who came to her house with the greatest frankness as her equals. She caused offence by her naïveté, and noticed it. People came to Lensky, not to her--if she would only understand that they wished to be as polite as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow limits of well-bred society--but she must understand it.

She did understand. When she observed that most of the ladies accepted her invitations without returning them, yes, when it happened that the art-loving Princess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a soirée, and overlooked his wife, then she understood. It began to tell upon her, to aggravate her.

She fulfilled her duties as hostess with displeasure, did the honors negligently, and did nothing to animate her receptions. My God! people came there to hear music and to rave over her husband,--she was no longer necessary. She became quite foolish and childish.

She was used to the homage that was paid her husband, she would have been fearfully angry if they had not paid him enough; but in Russia, this homage was shown in quite a different, much nobler, intenser form; in Russia he was a great man, before whom every one removed his hat, a sacred being of whom the nation was proud; men and women of the highest rank showed him the same respect.

But in ----, except one or two particularly enthusiastic lovers of music, none of the nobility appeared in his house, with the exception of the ladies. Why did he ask them? He ridiculed them--but yet their flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a composition to more than one of them.

Natalie was almost beside herself with rage. For the first time she felt a certain jealousy. Among others, there was a little dark Polish woman, married to a Swedish diplomat, and separated from him, a Countess Löwenskiold. She purred around him like a kitten.

Formerly he would have noticed the change in Natalie immediately, but for the first time since their marriage he forgot, not only in his study but elsewhere, his wife for his art. He was so happy in his art, so completely occupied with it, that he scarcely noticed the pitiful social pin-pricks which formerly would have caused him vexation enough, and consequently did not consider the importance they had for Natalie.

The study of his opera, for which they had placed at his disposal the best facilities at the command of the ---- Theatre, went steadily forward. The artists liked to work under his direction, and with enthusiasm did their utmost to do justice to his work. Joy fevered in every vein when he came home from the rehearsals.

* * * * * *

It was toward the end of the carnival. One of Lensky's musical soirées had been visited by quite an unusual number of brilliant visitors. A very large number of ladies of the best society had been there.

They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, with bare shoulders, and diamonds and feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in evening dress, while the wives of Lensky's colleagues and all the ladies present not belonging to the court circle had come in high-necked dresses.

When the aristocratic ladies, with profuse thanks for the musical treat offered them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, because they must, "alas!" still go "into society," into Natalie's social world, but which was closed to her in ----, Natalie remained the only woman in her drawing-room with bare shoulders.

Lensky, who had just accompanied some tedious Highness politely out of the room, now returned to the music-room, closed the door, behind which the noble patroness had disappeared, and cried gayly: "So, children, now we can be among ourselves, and enjoy a comfortable evening."

"Among ourselves!" These words pierced Natalie like a poisoned stiletto. "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower lip, angrily.

Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands, Lensky asked: "Would the gentlemen like to play the Schumann E-flat major quartette with me before we sit down to supper?" Then he looked over at Natalie and smiled. She knew that he proposed this wonderful quartette for her sake, because it was her favorite, but she was already so over-excited that the touching little attention made no impression on her. She remained as defiant and bad-tempered as before.

While they played she let her eyes wander gloomily over the already empty hired cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around in regular rows. She asked herself bitterly, what really was the difference between her "reception evenings" and any other concert?--that the people paid their admission with compliments instead of money! And while she made these useless and vexing observations, the most noble music that was ever written vibrated around her heart, like an admonition of how small all these worldly, outward vanities were in comparison with the lofty, god-like being of true art! And her obstinate heart had already begun to understand the sermon and to be ashamed, when she observed two bold eyes of a man staring from across the room at her bare shoulders. The eyes belonged to a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most influential musical critic and journalist in ----. Scarcely had he noticed that her look met his when he left his chair, in order, crossing the room, to take his place near Natalie, and continue his insolent scrutiny from near by. He was a disagreeable man, with thick lips, spectacles, and boldly displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could not endure him, had formerly tolerated him on Lensky's account. Now she felt so insulted by his manner, that, with the vehement impoliteness of a spoiled woman whose pride is wounded and who is excluded from her natural sphere, she sprang up, and turning her back directly to Mr. Arnold Spatzig, hastened away from him.

And now the quartette was over, and also the supper which followed, exquisite and over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did the honors with that heartiness, not overlooking the least of his guests, which was peculiar to him.

It was two o'clock, and the house was empty; the lights still burned. Lensky was busy arranging the music on the piano, Natalie stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, evidently trying to suppress a nervous attack. She held her handkerchief to her lips--it was no use. Suddenly she cried out: "Must I receive these people? I would rather scrub the floor!" And with that she made a gesture as if she would tear something apart.

"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He had become deadly pale, and his voice trembled.

She only drew her brows gloomily together and continued to gnaw at her handkerchief.

Then he lost patience. He seized a large Japanese vase, and threw it with such force on the floor that it broke in pieces; then he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

But Natalie looked after him, offended, and broke out in fierce, whimpering sobs.

A few minutes later when she, still weeping and trembling in every limb, leaned against a sofa, in whose cushions she had buried her face, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had come up to her. The traces of his difficultly mastered irritation were still on his deathly pale face, but he bent down anxiously to her and said gently: "Calm yourself, please, Natalie; it is no matter. Poor Natalie! I should have thought of it sooner. You shall never again receive any one--not a person--who does not please you, only stop crying; that I cannot bear."

At the first friendly word that he said to her, her whole ill humor changed to tormenting remorse and shame. "You will not take what I said to you in earnest," said she. "It is not possible that you should take this madness in earnest. I am so ashamed--ah, I cannot tell you how ashamed I am! I acted unjustifiably, but I was so tired, so nervous--scold me, be angry with me, and only then forgive me, or else your indulgence will oppress me too heavily," and with that she kissed his hands and sobbed--sobbed incessantly.

He caressed her like a little child whom one wishes to soothe, and she continued: "I will suit myself better to my position, I will be friendly to every one--as if I could not make that little sacrifice to your artistic position!"

Then he interrupted her: "I will accept no sacrifice from you, not the slightest, that I cannot do," said he. "What have you to trouble yourself about my artistic position? You have nothing at all to do but to love me and be happy--if you still can," he added softly, with a tenderness that for the first time since his marriage had a bitter savor.

But she looked up at him in the midst of her tears, with glorified happiness. "If I still can?" she whispered, drawing his head down to her--he now sat on the sofa beside her, with his arm around her waist--"if I still can!" His lips met hers, her head sank on his shoulder.

The candles in the chandeliers had burned low down, one of them went out, and in going out threw a couple of sparks down on the pieces of the Japanese vase which Lensky had broken in his anger. He had sent it to Natalie filled with roses, in Rome, while they were betrothed, therefore she loved it and had brought it with them to ----.

His eyes rested on the pieces with a peculiar sad look. "And now lie down and see that you sleep after your excitement," said he to the young wife. She followed him like a little child. He mixed her the sleeping potion of orange essence, to which she was accustomed, and calmed her with pleasant patient words. A happy smile lay on her lips when she at length fell asleep.

But he did not close his eyes during the whole night, he did not even lie down; but sat in his room at the writing-table. He wished to work on something, but the music-paper remained untouched beneath his pen.

How could she so give way, at the first little trial which she had ever had? Why had she spoken of a sacrifice? sacrifice! he would take no sacrifice from her.

* * * * * *

Natalie's reception days were given up under pretext of the illness of his young wife. From that time, Lensky saw most of his friends only outside of his house--his "patronesses" he saw no more.

Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful discontent, was ashamed of the scene she had made her husband, and still was foolish enough to rejoice over her victory, and to fully profit by it.

She offered all her intellectual, flattering, charming lovableness to recompense for the loss she had caused him, and to quite win him again for herself. She thought of all his preferences in her housekeeping, which, in the beginning, she had somewhat neglected in ----; with half unconscious slyness, she knew how to profit by his small as well as his great qualities; to attain her aim, knew how to touch his heart as well as to flatter his vanity. In full measure she attained what she strove for. Forgetting all the prudence which his position demanded, he laid just as enthusiastic homage at her feet as in the very first time of his marriage. But she was so charming! And how well her defiant arrogance became her! that arrogance which would bend to no one and only with her loved one melted into passionate submission.

What did the great artist coterie which his wife had repulsed say to all this? Oh, who could trouble one's self about all these people?

Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated period he had met with one vexation that concerned him very nearly. Three weeks before the appointed date for the production of his "Corsair," the prima donna of the ---- opera, Madame D., an artist of the first rank, for whom he had quite specially written the principal feminine rôle, declared that she would not sing it under any consideration. Lensky knew very well that he had to thank the senseless arrogance of his wife for the sudden opposition of this irritable leader; it was bitter to him; but without telling Natalie a word of it, he choked down this unpleasant affair, and submitted to seeing the part which the artiste had thoroughly learned and brought to such splendid perfection intrusted now to the weak powers of a talented but awkward beginner.

* * * * * *

The evening of the representation came. They were both feverish, he and she; but she fevered in expectation of a great triumph, he trembled before a defeat.

He knew that his work had three things against it: a libretto that, for an opera, was over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic effect, the weak representation of the principal rôle, and the whole coterie of artists and bohemians in the audience excited against him by the arrogance of his wife. Perhaps his music would save the situation. The music was beautiful, that he knew; he must build on that.

Natalie made the sign of the cross on his forehead and hung a consecrated Byzantine saint's picture, in a strange gold and black enamel frame, around his neck before he went into the fire, that is to say, before he drove to the opera-house to take the baton in his hand. He smiled at this superstitious action and let it happen.

The greatest heroes like to avail themselves of a little celestial protection before a battle.

In the opera-house he found everything in the best condition, courageous, ready for battle. An hour later he mounted the director's rostrum.

Once he turned his head to the audience, and his eyes sought Natalie. There she sat near the stage in a box in the first row, which she shared with the Countess Stolnitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi which he had given her as bridegroom; around her neck was wound a thick string of pearls which the Empress of Russia had sent him for her once when he played at court. In the whole theatre there was no woman who could compare with her in proud, beaming, and yet indescribably lovely beauty. She smiled at him constrainedly. What was not hidden in that scarcely perceptible smile! For the last time a kind of happy, proud delirium of love lay hold upon him. He knocked on the desk, raised his arm, and the violins began.

With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnestness, and with that, quite classically severe in the musical roundness and connection of the motives, the overture sounded through the crowded hall. It was rather too long, and as the learned ones among the audience remarked, was better suited for the first movement of a symphony than the introduction of an opera. But what of that! the music was beautiful, wonderfully beautiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon-like, ravishing power. Here, also, sounded the strange Arabian succession of tones again, which was the characteristic of all his compositions, the devil's tones: Asbeïn.

Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing in her ears, the beating of her heart was too loud.

The last piercing chord resounded through the hall. What was that? An immense burst of applause, unending bravos; the overture had to be repeated.

It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud. Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had forgotten her for his work.

The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the overture had increased her nervous tension still further.

During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to congratulate her.

While she received his congratulations, still trembling with excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far from her.

It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a soirée and passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr. Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment, not a long engagement, to be amused by them.

"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse.

Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly in Natalie's face.

The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original, but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera. Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward.

Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to inconsiderately insult the composer.

On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from them, quite as if she were dancing a pas de deux with the sea. Then Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess C.

Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, whispered something to her. She laughed--how heartily she laughed! The opera-glasses of many ladies in the boxes sought the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, the Princess laughed, the whole theatre laughed.

The aria was at an end, the gallery applauded. "Ss--ss--ss." What was that cutting, piercing sound which killed the applause?

Natalie became white as chalk; her friend sought her hand; Natalie drew it away; no human sympathy could be of use to her.

From that moment the enthusiasm of the audience rapidly declined. The lack of dramatic action in the libretto became more and more significant. More and more difficultly the poor music dragged along amidst a succession of glaring spectacular effects, which monotonously made place for each other without ever forming an interesting contrast. And the music was so beautiful. There was something so heavily majestic in the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle monotonous and over-laden, but in the accompaniment so wonderfully beautiful in spite of all, and furnished with a richness of melody unattainable by any of the other composers of the time, never approaching the trivial, but always remaining noble.

The audience was weary, and like every wearied audience, mocking; its musical comprehension was worn out. From the middle of the fourth act people began to leave the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the close, not a hand moved.

Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie silently down the steps. Natalie got into her carriage and directed it to the stage entrance. She had promised to call for Lensky after the opera. More dead than alive she sat in the pretty coupé and waited. The air was sharp, it was a frosty March night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mockery from the unreachable heavens, quite as if they were laughing to think that once more a child of man had tried to storm this heaven and had so pitiably failed.

A half-hour had passed; at last Natalie sprang from the carriage and hastened up the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. He was deathly pale, his hat was put on his head differently from usual, in a kind of enterprising and challenging manner; his walk had something negligent, swinging; there was a vagabond trace in his carriage that Natalie had never before perceived in him. He held his cigarette between his teeth and had the little singer on his arm who had to-day impersonated Gualnare in his opera. Many of the singers, as well as the members of the orchestra, came down the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty, whispering throng. For the first time, Natalie remarked a certain similarity, one might almost say a common family resemblance, between her hero and these other "artists." The men all had the same manner of wearing their hats and swaggering in their walk as he had to-day.

Although these men were more than ever repulsive to her, she greeted them with anxious politeness. "I was afraid you were ill," she said, while she glanced sadly and anxiously at Boris. "I have already waited half an hour for you."

"So! I am very sorry," replied he, and his voice sounded rougher than formerly. "I sent a messenger to you, he must have missed you. I cannot go home with you this evening, we"--he looked over his shoulder at the following crowd--"are going to have supper together. After a lost battle the commander must care for the strengthening of his troops." He laughed harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand of the singer who hung on his arm.

"A lost battle!" said Natalie. "Lost--but the first two acts were a great success!"

"'Don Juan' did not succeed at the first representation," remarked some one behind Lensky. He turned around and looked at the man with a comical, threatening gesture; then he said, with the expression of a man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts out with a witticism: "Who laughs last, laughs best!"

Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, in the middle of the narrow stairs. Her splendid fur cloak had half slipped down from her shoulders; her simple, distinguished toilet stood out in strange relief from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, motley evening adornments of the singers.

"You will take cold, wrap yourself up better," said Lensky, while he came up to her and drew the fur up around her neck.

"Will you take me with you to your supper? I would come with the greatest pleasure; je serai gentille avec tout le monde!" she whispered, softly and supplicatingly to him.

"What an idea!" said he, repellently. "No, to-night I sup as a bachelor. You bar the passage. Drive home quite calmly. Adieu!"

He pushed her into the carriage, and went. She put her head out of the window of the coupé to look after him. She saw how he got into a fiacre with the singer; one of the men crawled in after him; then she heard some one laughing, harshly, gipsy-like, was that he? Then came a great rattling of windows, and creaking and rolling of wheels. Her way and his parted. Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, which all seemed red to her, she rolled away in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten minutes later, weary and miserable, she crept up the steps of her residence. She knew that something terrible had happened, something that not only embittered her present, but would darken the future, that for her much more had gone wrong than the result of an opera.

* * * * * *

"Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull through; even the best operas have sometimes not immediately found approval with the public," said Lensky, with the awkward, forced smile that had not left his lips since the morning after his fiasco. The challenging, gipsy humor with which, in the beginning, he had sought to bluster over his disappointment, had not lasted long. Quiet, weary, and depressed, he dragged himself around as if after a severe illness. Natalie did what she could to be agreeable to him; her heart bled with pity, but she did not venture to approach him.

He avoided her, and if she spoke to him his answers sounded forced or vexed.

To-day, for the first time since the fatal evening, he turned to her with a remark in reference to his work. It was the third day after the first production of the opera, and at breakfast. Natalie had just read to him many criticisms from the newspapers which had arrived. In many, Lensky's magnificent musical gifts were praised.

"Perhaps the thing will pull through," said Lensky, and Natalie replied:

"Naturally, the opera will make a career for itself. You must yourself have forgotten how beautiful your music is, if you can doubt that."

"Is it really beautiful? I really do not know," murmured he. "One is so seldom able to believe it if others shrug their shoulders. To improvise variations on the old theme mon sonnet est charmant is a tasteless occupation."

There was a ring at the door-bell; he listened.

"Do you expect anything?" asked Natalie, and then she accidentally looked at the clock. It was already very late, and the hour at which he formerly had been accustomed to sit down to work was long past. She saw very well that he only trifled with time like a man who is too tormented by inward unrest to be able to resolve on an earnest occupation.

"Yes," he replied. "I do not understand why the Neue Zeit has not yet arrived."

Natalie lowered her eyes. The Neue Zeit was the journal in which Dr. Arnold Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his musical feuilletons, usually appeared.

"That"--Lensky motioned to the pile of other papers "is all very pretty and pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anxious to see what Spatzig will say."

"Do you consider Spatzig decisive?" asked Natalie, constrainedly.

"Yes."

"But you told me yourself that his judgment was always one-sided, prejudiced, and superficial; that he was really only a wit and no critic," murmured Natalie.

"I still think so, but nevertheless he has here taken upon himself the monopoly of musical good taste," replied Lensky. "The most intellectual part of the public, that is to say all the subscribers, fancy they can only consider an article of his as true. He has taken out a patent for it, like Marquis, in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, which these people like. A criticism is so easily noticed, one always appears intellectual if one cites it, the more malicious it is the better. Until now, Spatzig has spared me, hm--hm--" Boris smiled forcedly. "He even once compared me to Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to avoid me. Have you had anything with him, Natalie?"

Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I cannot endure him," said she; "and it is possible that he has noticed it; in fact, in reference to a certain point, one cannot have patience with a man."

"He surely has not presumed upon you?" Lensky started up angrily.

"No, no! He did not have an opportunity," said Natalie, very arrogantly. "Not that: but he has a way of forcing himself upon one; of looking at a woman----"

"That is to say he has bad manners," said Lensky. "Now----"

At this moment there was another ring at the door-bell. Shortly after the servant brought on a salver a whole pile of newspapers in their wrappings, which had just come by post. Lensky opened them hastily; they were all copies of the same paper--of Fortschritt, and in every copy there was a twelve-column-long notice marked with a blue or black pencil: "A musical enjoyment by design and intention," and with the motto, for title, "From whence the great discord arises which rings through this world (read opera)."

Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature.

"Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. "I did not know that he also wrote for Fortschritt."

"Do not read the thing," said Natalie, who, with feminine quickness, had already glanced over the article. "I beg you; why should you swallow the poison?"

But he shook her roughly from him, bent over the paper, and read half aloud: "If there were a musical 'Our Father,' the last supplicating request would be: deliver us from all evil, but especially from all virtuoso music. By his opera, Lensky has again given us a significant example of how greatly the reproductive activity of an artist hinders the development of his creative powers. His first smaller compositions really had always a certain melodic freshness. But in this last work, Lensky, like all men poor in invention, has shown himself a follower of that inconsolable musical pessimism which regards ennui and a feeling of universal, oppressive discomfort as a sine qua non of every distinguished musical work.

"The public, in a sympathetic frame of mind with the loved and distinguished master, in the beginning of the opera strained their good taste so far that they desired the repetition of the extremely tiresome overture, made up of badly connected motives, reminding one of Meyerbeer, Halévy, Gounod. But with the best intentions, the cut-and-dried wonder brought with them was not proof against the yawning monotony of the never-ending fourth act. Only the grotesque side of the unfortunate opera, which ever became more prominent in the course of the evening, helped the ill-used public over the dry emptiness of this musical desert. One could at least laugh heartily. What a consolation that was for the spectator, but hardly one for those who took part.

"One cannot understand how such an artist of the first rank as Mr. ---- could submit to make himself laughable in the rôle of Conrad...."

Lensky became paler and paler; he reached for a glass of water.

"Do not read any further," begged Natalie. "What does it matter what the liar writes? your music speaks for itself. This evening you will see how the public will applaud you, will receive you, to recompense you for this pitiful insult."

The second representation of "The Corsair" was fixed for that evening.

There was another ring at the door-bell; the servant brought a letter. Lensky broke it open hastily, and with a furious gesture threw it away, struck his fist on the table, and sprang up.

"What is it?" called Natalie, beside herself.

"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; the tenor has announced himself ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. "He has no pleasure in making himself laughable a second time. It is over;" passing the palm of his hand under his chin, with the gesture by which one understands that some one has been executed.

Natalie rushed up to him, but he impatiently motioned her away, and hurried by her to the door. All at once he remained standing, reached under his collar, tore off the little gold chain with the saint's picture which Natalie had hung round his neck before the first representation of "The Corsair," and flung it at her feet. Then he went into his study. She heard how he locked the door behind him.

How benumbed she still stood on the same spot where he had shaken her off from him--he had shaken her off!

How he must suffer to pain her so! Then she bent down to the poor little amulet which he had thrown away. She understood him. She had never been lacking in sentimental-poetic manners, but when it was necessary to sacrifice a humor for him, her love had not sufficed.

Her fault was great, but the punishment was fearful.