"Give them to me," said he, contracting his brows gloomily. She smiled at him without saying anything. Then something scratched at the door.
"Please open it, Boris Nikolaivitch," she asked.
He did so; her large dog, a gigantic Scotch greyhound, came in, and immediately springing up on his beautiful mistress, he laid both front paws on her shoulders. She took his heavy head between her slender hands, and murmuring tender, caressing words to him, she kissed him twice, three times, on the forehead.
Lensky took leave soon after without having mentioned his song cyclus. His mind was in an uproar. "Is she only coquetting with me?" he asked himself, "or--or--" A passionate joy throbbed in his veins, then suddenly an icy shudder ran over him. "And if she is only like all the others!"
At his departure Natalie had said to him: "You will come this evening, Boris Nikolaivitch, in spite of this boring Petersburg invasion? I beg you will, vous serez le coin bleu de mon ciel!"
* * * * * *
The evening came.
A Roman sirocco evening, with an approaching thunderstorm that hung heavily around the horizon and would not lift.
The heavily perfumed sultry air penetrated through the drawn curtains into the Assanows' drawing-room. The Jeliagins had brought a couple of Parisian friends with them, and naturally Pachotin was not missing. A deathly ennui reigned. They spoke of Parisian fashions, of the Empress Eugenie's new court; they complained of the new cook in the Hotel de l'Europe, and of the heat.
Then they spoke of national dances. The Jeliagins had recently travelled in Spain and were enthusiastic about the fandango. The Parisians had heard there was nothing more graceful than a well-danced Polish mazurka; could none of the Russian ladies dance one for them?--a very bold request, but they were all friends.