Lower, ever lower, softer, fuller--hark! The song had ceased, a rough breeze had blown it away.
Lensky looked up. Near the street stood a white church-yard wall, and tall, dark cypresses rose around it. At the gate stood white-robed monks around a coffin; the black smoke of their red, flickering torches darkened the bright spring air; from their lips sounded a dirge.
The carriage rolled on; the gloomy picture vanished; around ruled the spring. The breath of new life rose from the earth covered with fresh green, and in the hedges the flowers kissed each other.
XXXIX.
"Really, without evasion, what do you think of Lensky?" It is the Countess Löwenskiold, one of the former Lensky enthusiasts, who asks this question of Albert Perfection. She sits in one of the first rows of the Salla Dante, between Perfection and Madame Spatzig, with whom she is quite intimate, and awaits Lensky's appearance on the stage.
"I have such an insurmountable feeling of reverence and gratitude for Lensky that my judgment may not be impartial," replied Perfection, correctly.
"Perfection, pas de bêtises, give your true opinion," commands Frau Spatzig in her rough, guttural voice.
"Well, my true opinion is: I regret that with Lensky the summits are so near the abysses," says Perfection. "You must not misunderstand me, honored Countess----"
The Countess laughs and strikes him with her fan. "I understand you very well," cries she. "The epigram is wonderfully descriptive."
"Alas! it is not original with me; it comes from De Sterny--but how unpunctual Lensky is to-day." Perfection looks at his watch. "Half-past nine."