Still, in his home he quite unconsciously accustomed himself to an aristocratic atmosphere, and, with the refined sense of a true artist nature, susceptible to all beauty and distinction, in association with great ladies he felt a mixture of irritation and pleasure, while pleasure gradually won the upper hand; and in foreign countries, where he was received only exceptionally and with official solemnity, and really had intimate access to salons of the second rank only, he renounced intercourse with that refined world which he abused, like so many others, without being able to escape its perfidious charm, and felt, every time that he met one of his despised pretty St. Petersburg or Moscow enthusiasts, an unmistakable joy.
Two weeks after his meeting with Natalie at the Fontana di Trevi, Lensky appeared for the first time in the Palazzo Morsini. From a very large staircase, whose beauties he must admire by the light of the wax matches which he had brought in his pocket, he stumbled into a large vestibule, from which the servant conducted him through a heavy portière, painted with coats of arms as high as a man, into an immense drawing-room with soiled and faded yellow damask hangings and furniture.
"Monsieur Lensky!" announced the servant.
The virtuoso was accustomed to a universal exclamation following the announcement of his name, and the looks of the whole assembly should be directed to him.
Nothing of the sort this time. Natalie sat near an old French lady, Marquise de C., whose knitting she kindly helped to arrange, and as the young Russian introduced the virtuoso to her, she raised her lorgnette and said: "Monsieur Lensky--ah! vraiment, that is very interesting!" whereupon, without further troubling herself about him, she continued to speak to Natalie of all kinds of social affairs, the marriage of Marie X., the debts of Alexander T., the trousseau of Aurelie Z., and the boldness of that parvenu A.
For the present he could not approach the hostess. She warded him off with a nod from the distance, for she was engaged in a very exciting occupation. Although the universal interest for spiritualistic table-tapping and moving was already quite over, the repetition of this experiment, which strangely enough often succeeded in the Palazzo Morsini, was one of the favorite pastimes of Natalie's mother, the Princess Irina Dimitrievna Assanow. She now sat at a table in the middle of the drawing-room between many others, most of them old Russians, men and women; opposite her a thin, very young man with long, straight, blond hair, a well-known magnetizer.
It seemed to Lensky as if he had never seen anything more laughable than these half-dozen almost exclusively gray-haired people who sat with solemn bearing and attentive faces around a table whose edge they could just surround with hands stretched out as far as possible.
Those present who did not directly participate in the attempt to bewitch the table, stood around observing the interesting round surface.
But the table continued in a state of desperately exciting passivity.
Lensky, usually specially invited to soirées, of which he formed the centre of attraction, felt humiliated by the four-legged wooden rival, who, to-day, took all the attention away from him.