Lensky's face twitches with a painful, scarcely to be mastered emotion; he breathes difficultly. Then he murmurs bitterly: "You would be a poor surgeon, Colia. You have a heavy hand, a very heavy hand. It pains."
Nikolai is shocked. He would like to make good his awkward roughness, to say something loving, tender to his father. Nothing occurs to him.
Then Lensky suddenly turns to him and says: "If you should really meet such a girl as your mother was, and she takes you, then hold her fast in your arms and never part from her; carry her over every stone which might bruise her feet, protect her from every too hot ray of sunlight, from every too cold breath of air, which might harm her, and kneel down before her every evening, and thank her for the happiness which she gives you. But I do not believe that you will find her--she is not to be found!"
"I am very sorry that you have not met Fräulein von Sankjéwitch, father," begins Nikolai, in a warmer, changed tone.
"So am I," replies Lensky, shortly. "How does she look? A beauty, naturally--that is, you think her one."
"No, father, no beauty; but so charming, so lovely."
"H-m! and her manner? If a lady of society wanders on Parnassus, she is usually particularly genial. Is she a decided artist?" asks Lensky, lighting a cigarette.
"A--well, yes, a little--not very much, but a little," answers Nikolai, "and only in the best signification of the word. If you learn to know her you will be just as charmed with her as I!"
"So!--h-m! That is a little bit strong," says Lensky. His voice this time sounds decidedly more kindly, and he pulls the young man's ear.
"I am convinced of it," asserts Nikolai, boldly. "You have never seen such a girl, so full of grace in every movement, and still with such an interesting abruptness; peculiar, full of spontaneity; one moment gloomy, repellant almost to rudeness, then again so kindly cordial, so truly womanly and compassionate; all against a background of incurable sadness--in short, charming, and comparable with nothing else in this world!"