And from that time it was like an illness to the boy. He had learned to understand life so soon that it had made him old before his time. From his sixteenth year, and before that, he had carried about with him the grief of his poor, idolized mother. And Lensky reproached him for having lost his freshness.
Suddenly he takes his son by both shoulders and draws him to his breast--for the first time in years.
VII.
A little later, Nikolai and his father are rolling along the boulevard to see Mascha. The cab stops before a pretty private residence in the Avenue Wagram.
"Is Madame Jeliagin at home?" asks Lensky, while his son pays the cabman. Lensky never carries a groschen of money about with him.
"Madame cannot be seen," replies the servant at the house-door. Then a charming figure in a short, dark blue dress rushes down four, five steps at a time to the virtuoso.
"Ah!"
How often the little cry of joy with which his little daughter throws her soft, warm arms round his neck will ring in the ears of the artist as he grows older. And the kiss of her dewy, fresh, innocent lips--will he ever forget it? Mascha has lips like a four-year-old child.
"Papa! Colia! How lovely that you are both here, but how late!" says she, taking the hand of each and leading them into the hall. "Yes, how late! I have been standing at the window since ten o'clock, and looking to see if you were coming."
"You have lost much time, little one," says Lensky, and laughs.