Every morning he passed at his sister-in-law's house; usually he remained to lunch. He sent his pretty daughter all the wonderfully beautiful floral tributes which enthusiasts sent him, and besides that, indulged her with imprudent, immoderate generosity. Again and again he turned to Nikolai with the same: "Get me something for the child; she is so bewitching when she is pleased. She rejoices like a gipsy!"
"I have something for you, Puss," said he, when he went to see her, after she had greeted him, and handed her a package done up in paper, usually an ornament that was much too costly for her youth.
"Ah! give it to me, papa," and then she tore off the wrapping with the active impatience of a young, playful kitten, and opened the parcel. Lensky watched her good-naturedly with smiling expectation, like a great child that every day rejoices in playing the same trick--a sparkle of two dark blue eyes, a gay, penetrating cry of joy, and two soft, warm arms are thrown round his neck. But he presses his lips to the great, wonderfully beautiful eyes again and again, and murmurs something tender, incomprehensible, to the girl's curly hair.
"Really, do you love me much, papa?" said she once, and looked at him in astonishment piercingly at his moved face.
"Have you ever doubted it?"
"Yes, often," she nodded, earnestly. "I thought to love mutually with all one's heart was only for ordinary people like we others; but a great genius like you only tolerates one love, and sometimes is pleased without really returning it. But no; you really like me!"
"Oh! you foolish little monkey!" murmured he, and kissed each separate dimple in her soft, white, child's hands.
Sometimes he came at ten o'clock in the morning. At that time he frequently saw Barbara in a spotted morning dress, creeping about the house armed with a duster, polishing and putting everything to rights. He never saw Anna at such an early hour; at most, he heard her sharp voice wounding her mother by some sharp, insulting expression. Not only did she never help her mother in her domestic activity, no, she shut herself up in her room in order not to see Barbara about it.
But whom Lensky very often found busy about the house with Madame Jeliagin, was Mascha. Enveloped in a large blue apron, she appeared now here, now there, as zealously as gayly trying to assist her poor, sickly aunt; and what a capable, vigorous assistance! Her firm young fingers arranged things quite differently from Barbara's trembling hands. She climbed up on the furniture to remove cobwebs from the picture frames, she polished the mirrors and dusted the ornaments, practical and active as a housemaid by profession, and still laughing with gay, fairy-like grace, as a little princess, as if it were all a joke.
All the servants worshipped her; even the weary, stupid, tormented old Aunt Jeliagin learned to love her. It would be hard not to love this quick, lively, impetuous, but always kind-hearted little girl; only the intolerable Anna did not.