Panshin struck the opening chords of the sonata loudly, and with
decision (he was playing the second hand), but Liza did not begin her
part. He stopped, and looked at her. Liza's eyes, fixed straight upon
him, expressed displeasure; her lips were not smiling, her whole face was
stern, almost sad.
"What is the matter with you?"--he inquired.
"Why did not you keep your word?" said she.--"I showed you Christofor
Feodoritch's cantata on condition that you would not mention it to him."
"Pardon me, Lizaveta Mikhailovna, it was a slip of the tongue."
"You have wounded him--and me also. Now he will not trust me any more."
"What would you have me do, Lizaveta Mikhailovna! From my earliest
childhood, I have never been able to endure the sight of a German:
something simply impels me to stir him up."
"Why do you say that, Vladimir Nikolaitch! This German is a poor,
solitary, broken man--and you feel no pity for him? You want to stir him
up?"
Panshin was disconcerted.
"You are right, Lizaveta Mikhailovna,"--he said. "My eternal
thoughtlessness is responsible for the whole thing. No, do not say a
word; I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me many an ill
turn. Thanks to it, I have won the reputation of an egoist."
Panshin paused for a moment. No matter how he began a conversation, he
habitually wound up by speaking of himself, and he did it in a charming,
soft, confidential, almost involuntary way.
"And here in your house,"--he went on:--"your mother likes me, of
course,--she is so kind; you ... however, I do not know your opinion of
me; but your aunt, on the contrary, cannot bear me. I must have offended
her, also, by some thoughtless, stupid remark. For she does not like me,
does she?"
"No," said Liza, with some hesitation:--"you do not please her."
Panshin swept his fingers swiftly over the keys; a barely perceptible
smile flitted across his lips.
"Well, and you?"--he said:--"Do I seem an egoist to you also?"
"I know you very slightly,"--returned Liza:--"but I do not consider you
an egoist; on the contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you...."
"I know, I know, what you mean to say,"--Panshin interrupted her, and
again ran his fingers over the keys:--"for the music, for the books which
I bring you, for the bad drawings with which I decorate your album, and
so forth and so on. I can do all that--and still be an egoist. I venture
to think, that you are not bored in my company, and that you do not
regard me as a bad man, but still you assume, that I--how in the world
shall I express it?--would not spare my own father or friend for the sake
of a jest."
"You are heedless and forgetful, like all worldly people,"--said
Liza:--"that is all."
Panshin frowned slightly.
"Listen," he said:--"let us not talk any more about me; let us play our
sonata. One thing only I will ask of you,"--he said, as with his hand he
smoothed out the leaves of the bound volume which stood on the
music-rack:--"think what you will of me, call me an egoist even,--so be
it! but do not call me a worldly man: that appellation is intolerable to
me.... _Anch'io son pittore._ I also am an artist,--and I will
immediately prove it to you in action. Let us begin."
"We will begin, if you please,"--said Liza.
The first adagio went quite successfully, although Panshin made more
than one mistake. He played his own compositions and those which he had
practised very prettily, but he read music badly. On the other hand, the
second part of the sonata--a rather brisk allegro--did not go at all: at
the twentieth measure, Panshin, who had got two measures behind, could
hold out no longer, and pushed back his chair with a laugh.
"No!"--he exclaimed:--"I cannot play to-day; it is well that Lemm does
not hear us: he would fall down in a swoon."
Liza rose, shut the piano, and turned to Panshin.
"What shall we do now?"--she asked.
"I recognise you in that question! You cannot possibly sit with folded
hands. Come, if you like, let us draw, before it has grown completely
dark. Perhaps the other muse,--the muse of drawing ... what's her name?
I've forgotten ... will be more gracious to me. Where is your album? Do
you remember?--my landscape there is not finished."
Liza went into the next room for her album, and Panshin, when he was
left alone, pulled a batiste handkerchief from his pocket, polished his
nails, and gazed somewhat askance at his hands. They were very handsome
and white; on the thumb of the left hand he wore a spiral gold ring. Liza
returned; Panshin seated himself near the window, and opened the album.
"Aha!"--he exclaimed:--"I see that you have begun to copy my
landscape--and that is fine. Very good! Only here--give me a pencil--the
shadows are not put on thickly enough.... Look."
And Panshin, with a bold sweep, prolonged several long strokes. He
constantly drew one and the same landscape: in the foreground were large,
dishevelled trees, in the distance, a meadow, and saw-toothed mountains
on the horizon. Liza looked over his shoulder at his work.
"In drawing, and in life in general,"--said Panshin, bending his head
now to the right, now to the left:--"lightness and boldness are the
principal thing."
At that moment, Lemm entered the room, and, with a curt inclination, was
on the point of departing; but Panshin flung aside the album and pencil,
and barred his way.
"Whither are you going, my dear Christofor Feodoritch? Are not you
going to stay and drink tea?"
"I must go home,"--said Lemm in a surly voice:--"my head aches."
"Come, what nonsense!--stay. You and I will have a dispute over
Shakespeare."
"My head aches,"--repeated the old man.
"We tried to play a Beethoven sonata without you,"--went on Panshin,
amiably encircling his waist with his arm, and smiling brightly:--"but we
couldn't make it go at all. Just imagine, I couldn't play two notes in
succession correctly."
"You vould haf done better to sing your romantz,"--retorted Lemm, pushing
aside Panshin's arm, and left the room.
Liza ran after him. She overtook him on the steps.
"Christofor Feodoritch, listen,"--she said to him in German, as she
accompanied him to the gate, across the close-cropped green grass of the
yard:--"I am to blame toward you--forgive me."
Lemm made no reply.
"I showed your cantata to Vladimir Nikolaitch; I was convinced that he
would appreciate it,--and it really did please him greatly."
Lemm halted.
"Zat is nozing,"--he said in Russian, and then added in his native
tongue:--"but he cannot understand anything; how is it that you do not
perceive that?--he is a dilettante--and that's all there is to it!"
"You are unjust to him,"--returned Liza:--"he understands everything, and
can do nearly everything himself."
"Yes, everything is second-class, light-weight, hasty work. That pleases,
and he pleases, and he is content with that--well, and bravo! But I am
not angry; that cantata and I--we are old fools; I am somewhat ashamed,
but that does not matter."
"Forgive me, Christofor Feodoritch,"--said Liza again.
"It does not mattair, it does not mattair," he repeated again in
Russian:--"you are a goot girl ... but see yonder, some vun is coming to
your house. Good-bye. You are a fery goot girl."
And Lemm, with hasty strides, betook himself toward the gate, through
which was entering a gentleman with whom he was not acquainted, clad in a
grey coat and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Courteously saluting him (he
bowed to all newcomers in the town of O * * *; he turned away from his
acquaintances on the street--that was the rule which he had laid down for
himself), Lemm passed him, and disappeared behind the hedge. The stranger
looked after him in amazement, and, exchanging a glance with Liza,
advanced straight toward her.