Lensky passed his hand over his forehead. "As much as one can be with a pianist with whom one has been associated for six weeks only. He has not yet learned to think with me. For the rest, he is quite a clever man."
"I begin to be jealous!" cried Perfection.
"It is not necessary. With you it went better--finally. At first I tormented myself enough with you. But--one may say what one will--the piano accompaniment remains always a leaden weight for a violinist. With the orchestra it fares better, but that is too ceremonious. If I envy the pianist one thing, it is his independence. The accompanists are none of them worth anything--none of them."
"You discourage me, mon maître," cried Perfection. "When I heard of the trouble you had recently with pianists, I wished to place myself at your disposal, at least for your concert here."
Perhaps the offer was really well meant. In any case it was the quintessence of artistic politeness. Instead of thinking of this, Lensky burst out as if Perfection had wished to insult him with his offer, and cried: "So that it might be said the audience at Lensky's performances applauded the accompanist merely, eh?"
An unpleasant silence followed. At last Perfection began with suffocated voice: "As I see, you have read Spatzig's article about me."
"Yes; I even did not grudge you the article from my heart," assured Lensky, cuttingly. "I am glad for you that you stand so well with the critics."
Perfection looked the furious old man full in the face. Offended innocence and insulted dignity spoke from his face.
"You do me bitter injustice by this allusion," said he, quietly, and with emphasis. "I could not help it that that article was written. I had not read it before it appeared. If I had known of it I would never have given my consent to its publication. I found it tasteless and rough, and did not feel at all flattered by it, but ashamed. It has made me many enemies in Germany. In Rome, on the contrary, where it has been translated into French and Italian and printed in different journals, it has been of use to me, of great use, and you, Lensky"--for the first time Perfection called his former patron briefly by his name, which did not escape the latter--"you, Spatzig's feuilleton has here--understand me correctly, here in Rome, where you have not been heard for thirty years; here, where they rely on Spatzig's judgment--immeasurably injured. I tell you truly, in the superficial musical world which here forms the decisive part of the audience, a great prejudice against you prevails. The hearty enthusiasm which everywhere else meets you is here limited to one or two hundred of your old admirers in the strangers' colony. So! There you have the situation." Perfection is silent.
Lensky's lips have drawn themselves ever more deeply down at the corners; his nostrils quiver, he passes his hand uneasily over the table between himself and Perfection. "That is all very instructive and very interesting that you tell me," said he, uneasily; "but how does it further concern me?"