To-day there is nothing left of Lensky's melancholy; at least for the present he has put it aside, has not had much time to devote to it. Since nine o'clock in the morning he has been overwhelmed with visits. At the moment there is no one with him but the gay violinist of yesterday, Monsieur Paul. As Lensky cannot remain unoccupied for a moment without being nervous, he has proposed to Monsieur Paul to play a game of piquet.
Just then Nikolai enters the room. He brings with him a cool, well-bred atmosphere, which disturbs the two musicians. All comfort is over for them. Monsieur Paul looks at his watch and declares that it is high time for him to go and have his hair cut. Father and son remain alone.
"So you show yourself at last, sluggard?" says Lensky, while he still mechanically shuffles the cards.
"I wished to present myself several times already," remarks Nikolai, "but I heard that you were engaged."
"That need not have prevented you," replies the virtuoso. "Your discretion has deprived you of great enjoyment, per primo, the praises sung of a young lady whose voice I really could not well judge, because she, as her companion told me, had been hoarse for six months from unhappy love. I did not really learn what she wished to get from me--a stipend, an engagement at the opera in St. Petersburg, or that I should cure her of her unhappy love; but, apropos, I am really a little tired of playing the Brahmin who gives his body prey to vermin for penance. You can ring the bell. I will tell the waiter he shall admit no one else."
The waiter has appeared and disappeared again. Father and son can be assured not to be disturbed. They can now talk unrestrainedly together. But the somewhat forced, humorous flow of speech of his father has ceased. Stronger than yesterday is apparent the mutual lack of confidence of the two, a lack of confidence which in the young Lensky betrays itself by a quite exaggerated deference; in the older by a grumbling roughness. He cannot understand this son. Not that anything about him displeases him; his eyes rest not without pride and satisfaction on the young giant with the slender, delicate hands, the fine, aristocratic face. The most exacting father would be content with this son. He has studied with distinction; he has never made debts; he is scarcely twenty-three years old, attaché to the Russian embassy in Paris, and a thoroughly good fellow. What more can Lensky wish, what does he miss in Nikolai? A little imprudent enthusiasm, hot-blooded frivolity, a little youthfulness--that he misses in him. Nikolai is old at twenty-three.
And then these perpetual well-bred manners. Lensky could never bear men of the world, and Nikolai is one; that enrages him.
"How did the Jeliagin welcome my little tomboy?" he asks his son at last.
"Very graciously," replies Nikolai.
"That pleases me."