Maschenka takes an ice, tastes it, and pushes it away.
"You are evidently very tired," remarks Bärenburg compassionately.
"It is my first evening in society," sighs Mascha. "I looked forward to it so, but if society is always as tedious as to-day--" She sighs inconsolably.
"Great assemblies of people are always disagreeable," he answers. "One can at first not find among the crowd the people one seeks, and must not stay long with them when one has at length found them. At such routs I mostly spend my whole energy in keeping from treading on ladies' trains and being discovered yawning by the hostess. But this evening an exceptional pleasure has been afforded us----"
"Do not speak of it," says Mascha. "My father's playing has given you no pleasure this evening."
Bärenburg pulls his mustache.
"Your father's playing is almost too grand; it has a paralyzing effect in a drawing-room," he murmurs.
"Ah, no, it is not that. You should only hear him play when we are quite alone in the same room. Oh! then it is beautiful enough to move one to tears; but this evening I scarcely recognize him." Maschenka interrupts herself and lowers her head.
He is very sorry for her in her wounded, childish pride. He feels the necessity of distracting her in some manner. A brilliant thought comes to him. "Before I forget it," says he, "would the skin of the identical bear in whose arms Nikolai almost perished, give you any pleasure? I possess it."
"Oh!" says Mascha, jubilant, "an indescribable pleasure!" She gives him her hand. Just then Anna, with two very beautiful and elegant Englishwomen, goes through the room. Bärenburg rises and goes up to them. Mascha waits for him to return to her. No; he gives his arm to one of the Englishwomen, and escorts them out with Anna. Mascha creeps away. She seeks her father, Colia--any one who really cares for her. She looks through the portière into the smoking-room. The whole room is full of smoke; suddenly she hears a laugh which she does not know, rough, harsh.