"Why don't you thank him?" said the hostess. "It seems to me that this would be a capital thing for you.—Only I would not advise you," she continued, turning to Delesof, and shaking her head warningly.
"Very much obliged to you," said Albert, seizing Delesof's hand with both his moist ones. "Only now let us have some music, please."
But the rest of the guests were already making their preparations to depart; and as Albert did not address them, they came out into the ante-room.
Albert bade the hostess farewell; and having taken his worn hat with wide brim, and a last summer's alma viva, which composed his only protection against the winter, he went with Delesof down the steps.
As soon as Delesof took his seat in his carriage with his new friend, and became conscious of that unpleasant odor of intoxication and filthiness exhaled by the musician, he began to repent of the step that he had taken, and to curse himself for his childish softness of heart and lack of reason. Moreover, all that Albert said was so foolish and in such bad taste, and he seemed so near a sudden state of beastly intoxication, that Delesof was disgusted. "What shall I do with him?" he asked himself.
After they had been driving for a quarter of an hour, Albert relapsed into silence, took off his hat, and laid it on his knee, then threw himself into a corner of the carriage, and began to snore.... The wheels crunched monotonously over the frozen snow, the feeble light of dawn scarcely made its way through the frosty windows.
Delesof glanced at his companion. His long body, wrapped in his mantle, lay almost lifeless near him. It seemed to him that a long head with large black nose was swaying on his trunk; but on examining more closely he perceived that what he took to be nose and face was the man's hair, and that his actual face was lower down.
He bent over, and studied the features of Albert's face. Then the beauty of his brow and of his peacefully closed mouth once more charmed him. Under the influence of nervous excitement caused by the sleepless hours of the long night and the music, Delesof, as he looked at that face, was once more carried back to the blessed world of which he had caught a glimpse once before that night; again he remembered the happy and magnanimous time of his youth, and he ceased to repent of his rashness. At that moment he loved Albert truly and warmly, and firmly resolved to be a benefactor to him.
IV.
The next morning when Delesof was awakened to go to his office, he saw, with an unpleasant feeling of surprise, his old screen, his old servant, and his clock on the table.