Albert paused for a moment, as though making sure of his recollections.
"How it happened I know not, but I was invited once to accompany her on my violin.... Now I was only a poor artist!" he repeated, shaking his head and smiling. "But no, I cannot tell you, I cannot!" he exclaimed, again clutching his head. "How happy I was!"
"What? did you go to her house often?" asked Delesof.
"Once, only once.... But it was my own fault; I wasn't in my right mind. I was a poor artist, and she an aristocratic lady. I ought not to have spoken to her. But I lost my senses, I committed a folly. Petrof told me the truth: 'It would have been better only to have seen her at the theatre.'"
"What did you do?" asked Delesof.
"Ah! wait, wait, I cannot tell you that."
And, hiding his face in his hands, he said nothing for some time.
"I was late at the orchestra. Petrof and I had been drinking that evening, and I was excited. She was sitting in her box, and talking with some general. I don't know who that general was. She was sitting at the very edge of the box, with her arm resting on the rim. She wore a white dress, with pearls on her neck. She was talking with him, but she looked at me. Twice she looked at me. She had arranged her hair in such a becoming way! I stopped playing, and stood near the bass, and gazed at her. Then, for the first time, something strange took place in me. She smiled on the general, but she looked at me. I felt certain that she was talking about me; and suddenly I seemed to be not in my place in the orchestra, but was standing in her box, and seizing her hand in that place. What was the meaning of that?" asked Albert, after a moment's silence.
"A powerful imagination," said Delesof.
"No, no, ... I cannot tell," said Albert frowning. "Even then I was poor. I hadn't any room; and when I went to the theatre, I sometimes used to sleep there."