"She has retired. Will you go up to her room?"
"No, it is too late," says Lensky, frowning, and adds: "Do you object to walking, Colia? A stroll has charms for me. I never walk in the daytime, for every street boy runs after me; that is vexatious."
Nikolai himself was pleased to breathe some fresh air after the close rooms.
Lensky was in an elevated mood. With head somewhat thrown back, overcoat open, with swinging arms, he walked near his son. Not far from the house two belated wanderers met them. They started at sight of the virtuoso. "Ah, Lensky!" they exclaimed, and stood still. When Lensky looked at them smilingly, although they were not personally acquainted with him, they took off their hats as though he were a crowned head.
Lensky bowed politely, graciously. "It is too absurd," he remarked, walking on. "Not even at two o'clock in the morning can one walk on the street without being recognized. I believe Bismarck and I have the best-known faces in Europe."
Scarcely had he said this when he felt how laughable it was; he is vexed at it, and, as always after his great or small triumphs, now, when the momentary intoxication of it begins to wear off, an embarrassing, suffocating, quite humiliating feeling overcomes him.
All at once he stands still. Nikolai looks at him. He is frightened at the tormented expression of the artist's pale face.
"Are you not well, father?" asks he, taking him by the arm, anxious lest a new attack of giddiness, had overcome him.
"No, no, there is nothing the matter with me."
They had reached the end of the Champs Elysées. "Stop a little," says Lensky. "Sit down on the bench--no, not that one near the light; here in the shadow--and let us talk, that is, if you are not sleepy."