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.