yBRARY . j 
 
 KMIUCPQITY nfl^R 
 
 CALIFORN 
 
 SAN DIEGC 

 
 WITH HANDS LIGHTLY FOLDED IN HER LAP AND HEAD LEANED BACK AGAINST 
 HER CHAIR, NATALIE HAS LISTENED. IN THE BEGINNING SHE HAD BEEN CARRIED 
 OUT OF HERSELF BY A FEELING OF PAINFULLY SWEET HAPPINESS, BUT NOW Shii FELT 
 STRANGELY OPPRESSED.
 
 ASBEIN 
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF A VIRTUOSO 
 
 BY 
 
 OSSIP SCHUBIN 
 
 TRANSLATED BY ELISE L. LATHROP 
 
 ff 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 
 1890
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY 
 WORTHINGTON CO. 
 
 Press of J.J. Little & Co., 
 Astor Place, New York.
 
 ASBEIN. 
 
 FIRST BOOK. 
 
 " BUT do you really not recognize me ?" 
 With these words, and with friendly, out- 
 stretched hands, a young lady hastened 
 toward a man who, with gloomily con- 
 tracted brow, wrapped in thought, went on 
 his way without noticing either her or his 
 surroundings. He was foolish, for his sur- 
 roundings were picturesque Rome, near 
 the Fontana di Trevi, on a bright March 
 
 * When the Devil, banished from heaven, resolved on 
 the temptation of mankind, he loved to make use of 
 music which had been made known to him as a heavenly 
 privilege when he still was a member of the eternal hosts. 
 But the Almighty deprived him of his memory, so he could 
 remember but a single strain, and this mysterious, be- 
 witching strain is still called in Arabia " The Devil's 
 Strain Asbein. " Aral/ion Legends.
 
 4 Asbe'tn. 
 
 afternoon. And the young lady she was 
 charming. 
 
 Although she had called to him in 
 French, something about her one could 
 scarcely have told what betrayed the Rus- 
 sian ; everything, the pampered woman 
 from the highest circles of society. 
 
 The young man whose attention she had 
 sought to attract in such a violent and 
 unconventional manner was just as evi- 
 dently a Russian, but of quite a different 
 condition. One could hardly decide to 
 what fixed sphere of society he belonged, 
 but one perceived immediately that his 
 manners had never been improved, pol- 
 ished, softened by society discipline, that 
 he was no man of the world. He was, evi- 
 dently, a man who was apart from the rank 
 and file, a man who stood far out from the 
 conventional frame, a man whom no one 
 could pass without twice looking after him. 
 His form was large and somewhat heavy ; 
 his face, framed by dark, half-curled hair, in 
 spite of the blunt profile, reminded one of
 
 Asbein. 5 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, but Bonaparte in the 
 first romantic period of his life, before he 
 had become fat and accustomed to pose for 
 the classic head of Caesar. 
 
 She was the Princess Natalie Alexandrov- 
 na Assanow ; he the feted violin virtuoso 
 and well-known composer, Boris Lensky. 
 
 She had run herself quite out of breath 
 to catch up with him ; twice she had called 
 to him before he heard her; then he looked 
 around and lifted his hat. 
 
 " Boris Nikolaivitch, do you not really 
 recognize me ? " said she, now in Russian, 
 laughing and breathless. 
 
 " You here, Princess ! Since when ? 
 Why have you given me no sign of your 
 existence ? " and he took both the slender 
 girlish hands, still outstretched to him, in 
 his. 
 
 "We only arrived here yesterday from 
 Naples." 
 
 " Ah ! and I go there to-day." His long- 
 drawn words betrayed very significantly a 
 certain vexation.
 
 6 Asbein. 
 
 "Yes, to give three concerts there. I 
 know ; it was in the newspapers," she nod- 
 ded earnestly, and sighed. 
 
 " Hm ! " he began ; " then " he hesi- 
 tated. 
 
 " Then you do not understand why I did 
 not wait for the concerts?" said she, gayly ; 
 " it was impossible." 
 
 " Impossible?" said he with a short, de- 
 fiant motion of the head, the motion of a 
 too-tightly checked race-horse who impa- 
 tiently jerks at the bridle. " How so impos- 
 sible ? What word is that from the mouth 
 of a young lady who has nothing else in 
 the world to do but amuse herself?" 
 
 " As if I were independent ! " she sighed, 
 with comic despair. " First, mamma could 
 not leave Naples hm for family reasons. 
 My sister is married there, you know. 
 Then then ' 
 
 " Do not trouble yourself with polite ex- 
 cuses," he interrupted her. " I see that 
 you are no longer interested in my music ;" 
 and, half-jesting, half-vexed, shrugging his
 
 Asbe'tn. 7 
 
 shoulders, he added, " What of it ? One 
 must put up with one's destiny!" 
 
 " I am no longer interested in your 
 music ! " said she, angrily ; " and you vent- 
 ure to say that to me, even after I have 
 run after you yes, really run after you, 
 which is not proper only to 
 
 She stopped, her face wore a vexed, in- 
 dignant expression. " Why did you do 
 it ? " said he, roughly ; " it is not becom- 
 ing." 
 
 Instead of losing her self-possession, she 
 laughed heartily. " But, Boris Nikolaivitch," 
 said she, " you speak as if you were a true 
 man of the world. However, as you please, 
 I thank you for the lecture. Adieu ! " 
 
 And nodding her head quite arrogantly, 
 she was about to turn on her heel, when her 
 look met his. She saw that she had vexed 
 him, remained standing, blushed, and low- 
 ered her eyes. 
 
 The waters of the Acqua Nigo foamed and 
 sparkled gayly between the edges of the 
 stone basin which Nicolo Salvi had made
 
 8 Asbe'in. 
 
 for them ; the noonday church-bells mingled 
 their deep, solemn voices with the caress- 
 ing rippling of the waves ; the sun shone 
 full from the deep-blue, ice-cold heaven, a 
 glaring, unpleasant March sun, which was 
 light without warming, like the condescend- 
 ing smile of a great man, and Natalie's 
 maid who, grumbling and bored, stood a 
 step behind her young mistress, opened a 
 round, green fan to shield her eyes, and at 
 the same time stamped her feet from the 
 cold. Around, the Roman life went on in 
 its usual lazy way. Before a small, loaded 
 cart stood a mule with a number of red and 
 blue tassels about its ears and on its fore- 
 head hung a brass image of the Virgin. In 
 the door of a vegetable shop, from which 
 came a strong smell of herbs, crouched a 
 black-eyed, white Spitz dog, that twitched 
 its right ear uneasily. A fat, smooth-headed 
 Capuchin passed by, then came two shab- 
 bily dressed young people. The Capuchin 
 stopped to scratch the mule's head, the 
 young people nudged each other, and said
 
 Asbe'in. 9 
 
 in an undertone, while they pointed to the 
 virtuoso : " E Borisso Lensky." 
 
 " There you have it," said the princess, 
 shaking off her vexation with a charming, 
 pleasant smile, and her head bent one side. 
 "Great man that you are, and still you take 
 it amiss in me." She said nothing more, 
 only raised her great blue eyes and gave 
 him a look, a never-to-be-forgotten look, 
 behind whose roguishness a riddle was con- 
 cealed. 
 
 " I take nothing amiss in you," said he, 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Really nothing? Now, then, I can tell 
 you how much, oh! how much, I have 
 longed to hear you play again, that I, coAte 
 quit codte, seized the opportunity to ask 
 you to stop in Rome on your return from 
 Naples only to She hesitated, as if she 
 were suddenly afraid of being indiscreet. 
 
 " Only to play something for the Princess 
 Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow," he com- 
 pleted her sentence, laughing. " Good. 
 I will come, Natalie Alexandrovna ; in two
 
 io Asbein. 
 
 weeks I am there. But if you are then in 
 Florence or Nice " 
 
 She was about to make a very positive as- 
 sertion, when a slender, fashionably dressed 
 man, with a very high hat and fault- 
 less gloves, passed by them, greeted the 
 princess respectfully, and, with a slight 
 squint, measured Lensky from head to foot. 
 Lensky recognized in him an officer of the 
 guard, Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pacho- 
 tin, and remembered last winter, during the 
 season in St. Petersburg, he paid court to 
 Natalie. The scrutinizing look of the young 
 man vexed him beyond bounds ; everything 
 looked red before him. " Ah ! he here ? " 
 he asked the young princess with mocking 
 emphasis. " May one congratulate you ? " 
 
 She frowned and turned away her head. 
 " No ! " murmured she. Then raising her 
 wonderful eyes to him again : " So, farewell 
 for two weeks ! " 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Say positively, I beg you, and throw 
 the traditional soldo in the fountain."
 
 Asbetn. 11 
 
 " With the best of intentions, I cannot do 
 that ; I have none with me," he laughed, 
 now involuntarily. 
 
 She was charming. She wore a brown 
 velvet bonnet that was fastened under the 
 chin with broad ribbons. She had pushed 
 back her veil, and the transparent brown 
 gauze shining in the sun formed a golden 
 background for her pretty, pale face. It 
 was cold, although the beginning of March, 
 and therefore her tall figure was wrapped to 
 the feet in a sable-trimmed velvet cloak, 
 beneath which a scarcely visible silk dress 
 rustled very melodramatically. A delicate 
 perfume of amber and fresh violets exhaled 
 from her. 
 
 " You have no soldo ? " said she ; " then I 
 will lend you one." She earnestly sought 
 in her portemonnaie, whereupon she hand- 
 ed him the coin. He threw it in the basin 
 of the noisy, rippling Fontana di Trevi. The 
 water sparkled golden for a moment, when 
 the coin sank, and tried to form circles, but 
 the spouting gayety of the cascade obliter- 
 ated them.
 
 12 Asbein. 
 
 "You will come ! " said Natalie, laughing 
 gayly. 
 
 " Yes, I will come," said he, not gayly 
 as she, but gloomily, even grumbling. 
 " But if you are not there," he added, 
 or " 
 
 She had already turned to go, and with- 
 out replying anything to his last words, she 
 called to him over her shoulder : 
 
 " Via Giulia Palazzo Morsini! " 
 
 He looked after her for a long time. 
 The fashionable dress at that time was 
 very ugly. This little scene took place in 
 the fifties, when the Empress Eugenie had 
 again brought into favor the hoop-skirt 
 which had disappeared quite a half-century 
 before. But still Natalie Alexandrovna 
 was charming. How peculiar her walk was, 
 so light and still a little dragging, dreamily 
 gliding, withal not weary, but with a pe- 
 culiar certain characteristic rhythm. He 
 thoughtfully hummed a melody to it. 
 
 Yes, he would come back. Whether he 
 would have come back if the glance of the
 
 Afsbe'in. 1 3 
 
 officer of the guard had not angered him ? 
 He must see, must teach this dandy ! 
 
 " You speak just as if you were a true man 
 of the world," the princess had replied to 
 his as he angrily told himself highly un- 
 suitable and tasteless advice. Now it might 
 perhaps be small ; yes, certainly it was small, 
 but sometimes, sometimes he would secret- 
 ly have preferred to be a true man of the 
 world instead of being a celebrity. 
 
 " She ran after me ! " he said to himself 
 again. " Why did she run after me ? It was 
 charming in her she would not have done 
 it for any one else ! Bah ! She is still only 
 like all the others ! " And the great artist, 
 whose life resembled a continual triumphal 
 procession, of whom already a finger-thick 
 biography with glaringly false dates had ap- 
 peared, and concerning whom the papers 
 every day reported something remarkable, 
 suddenly felt a kind of envy of Count Kon- 
 stantin Paulovitch Pachotin, a St. Peters- 
 burg dandy, whose name had never been in
 
 14 Asbetn. 
 
 the papers, and whom he despised for his 
 narrow-mindedness. 
 
 He was a great genius, but, like many 
 other great geniuses, he was of quite obscure 
 parentage. Some asserted he came from 
 that horrible citadel of the poor in Moscow 
 where misery intrenches itself against prog- 
 ress, in filth, stupidity, and vice ; others 
 said he had been found, a scarcely week-old 
 child, wrapped in rags, before the door of 
 the Conservatory in St. Petersburg. There 
 were really all kinds of accounts in the pa- 
 pers. This one said that he was the son of 
 a princess of the blood and a gypsy ; that 
 one, that he descended from an old princely 
 family of the Czechs, and many other such 
 romantic inventions. He shrugged his 
 shoulders scornfully at all such improvisa- 
 tions, without refuting them by accurate 
 personal accounts. How did the cold, hun- 
 gry, maltreated sadness of his first youth 
 concern the world ? Now he was Boris 
 Lensky, one of the first musicians of his 
 time. Everything else could be indifferent
 
 Asbein. 15 
 
 to the man. .It was indifferent to them ; it 
 was quite indifferent to them all, only not 
 to him. The wounds which the tormenting 
 martyrdom of his childhood had torn in his 
 heart had never quite healed ; therefore he 
 showed a sensitiveness and irritability which 
 even the most sympathetic person could 
 scarcely comprehend. 
 
 But now he fared very well in the world. 
 No one was so pampered, so caressed as 
 he. 
 
 His playing exercised such a penetrating, 
 sense-ensnaring charm that his listeners, 
 transported in a kind of musical intoxica- 
 tion, lost their capability of judging, and 
 even the most well-bred women crowded 
 around him with allegiance so exaggerated 
 that it tore down the boundary of every 
 customary demeanor. 
 
 Another would have enjoyed this alle- 
 giance without thinking further of it ; but 
 for Lensky, on the contrary, it had a repel- 
 lent effect. Child of the people to the 
 finger-tips, totally unused to the customs of
 
 1 6 Asbe'tn. 
 
 fashionable circles, his feeling of propriety 
 was as wounded by what he plainly called 
 insolent shamelessness as that of a peasant 
 who for the first time sees a woman with 
 bare shoulders. 
 
 Besides his sense of propriety, there was 
 another that was wounded by the lack of 
 reserve which great ladies showed him, and 
 that was his pride. Not only gifted with 
 musical genius, but with a very clear head, 
 he soon perceived that if the ladies of the 
 great world permitted themselves freer 
 manners with him than did women of a 
 more modest sphere of life, they still took 
 liberties with him of which they would have 
 been ashamed in association with compan- 
 ions of their own rank. " Mon dieu, avec un 
 virtuose, cela ne tire pas h consequence" he 
 once heard an elegant little St. Petersburg 
 woman say. He never forgot the words, and 
 in consequence received all the feminine alle- 
 giance of good society with hostile distrust. 
 
 He usually excused the tactless exuber- 
 ance of a poorly cared for, badly brought
 
 Asbein. 17 
 
 up woman of the Conservatory. In society 
 of this kind, of saddened womanly exist- 
 ence, incessantly touched with pity, he 
 showed kindness to the sad enthusiasts 
 wherever he could, and laughed at their 
 tasteless animation. But for the great la- 
 dies, who should have known better, who 
 thought that they alone held the monop- 
 oly of good form, and who still pursued a 
 man like wild beasts for these he had no 
 consideration. His roughness in inter- 
 course with them had become almost as 
 proverbial as the success which he attained 
 with them. 
 
 Still, in his home he quite unconsciously 
 accustomed himself to an aristocratic atmos- 
 phere, and, with the refined sense of a true 
 artist nature, susceptible to all beauty and 
 distinction, in association with great ladies 
 he felt a mixture of irritation and pleasure, 
 while pleasure gradually won the upper 
 hand ; and in foreign countries, where he 
 was received only exceptionally and with 
 official solemnity, and really had intimate
 
 1 8 Asbe'tn. 
 
 access to salons of the second rank only, he 
 renounced intercourse with that refined 
 world which he abused, like so many others, 
 without being able to escape its perfidious 
 charm, and felt, every time that he met one 
 of his despised pretty St. Petersburg or 
 Moscow enthusiasts, an unmistakable joy. 
 
 Two weeks after his meeting with Natalie 
 at the Fontana di Trevi, Lensky appeared 
 for the first time in the Palazzo Morsini. 
 From a very large staircase, whose beauties 
 he must admire by the light of the wax 
 matches which he had brought in his 
 pocket, he stumbled into a large vesti- 
 bule, from which the servant conducted 
 him through a heavy portiere, painted 
 with coats of arms as high as a man, into 
 an immense drawing-room with soiled and 
 faded yellow damask hangings and furni- 
 ture. 
 
 " Monsieur Lensky! " announced the ser- 
 vant. 
 
 The virtuoso was accustomed to a uni- 
 versal exclamation following the announce-
 
 Asbe'tn. 19 
 
 ment of his name, and the looks of the 
 whole assembly should be directed to 
 him. 
 
 Nothing of the sort this time. Natalie 
 sat near an old French lady, Marquise de 
 C., whose knitting she kindly helped to ar- 
 range, and as the young Russian introduced 
 the virtuoso to her, she raised her lorgnette 
 and said : " Monsieur Lensky ah \vraiment, 
 that is very interesting ! " whereupon, with- 
 out further troubling herself about him, she 
 continued to speak to Natalie of all kinds 
 of social affairs, the marriage of Marie X., 
 the debts of Alexander T., the trousseau of 
 Aurelie Z., and the boldness of that par- 
 venu A. 
 
 For the present he could not approach 
 the hostess. She warded him off with a 
 nod from the distance, for she was engaged 
 in a very exciting occupation. Although 
 the universal interest for spiritualistic table- 
 tapping and moving was already quite over, 
 the repetition of this experiment, which 
 strangely enough often succeeded in the
 
 2O Asbein. 
 
 Palazzo Morsini, was one of the favorite 
 pastimes of Natalie's mother, the Princess 
 Irina Dimitrievna Assanow. She now sat 
 at a table in the middle of the drawing-room 
 between many others, most of them old 
 Russians, men and women ; opposite her a 
 thin, very young man with long, straight, 
 blond hair, a well-known magnetizer. 
 
 It seemed to Lensky as if he had never 
 seen anything more laughable than these 
 half-dozen almost exclusively gray-haired 
 people who sat with solemn bearing and at- 
 tentive faces around a table whose edge 
 they could just surround with hands 
 stretched out as far as possible. 
 
 Those present who did not directly par- 
 ticipate in the attempt to bewitch the table, 
 stood around observing the interesting 
 round surface. 
 
 But the table continued in a state of des- 
 perately exciting passivity. 
 
 Lensky, usually specially invited to soi- 
 res, of which he formed the centre of attrac- 
 tion, felt humiliated by the four-legged
 
 Asbe'in. 21 
 
 wooden rival, who, to-day, took all the at- 
 tention away from him. 
 
 At last the old French woman turned to 
 the observation of the table, which permit- 
 ted the young girl to devote herself a little 
 to Lensky, rapidly becoming more gloomy ; 
 then the door opened and the butler an- 
 nounced Count Pachotin. The virtuoso 
 felt not at all pleasantly toward the young 
 dandy when he asked him unusually kindly 
 and sympathetically whether he was con- 
 tented with the result of his last concert 
 tour. 
 
 After Pachotin had fulfilled the conde- 
 scension, which as a finely cultivated noble- 
 man he thought he owed to an artistic star 
 he turned to Natalie and from then ignored 
 Lensky as completely as the Marquise de 
 C. had done. Lensky meanwhile morosely 
 pulled long horse-hairs from the holes in 
 the thread-bare arms of the damask chair. 
 He was very helpless in spite of his already 
 great renown. His actions in society were 
 solely confined to playing and permitting
 
 22 Asbe'in. 
 
 the ladies to rave over him. He did not 
 understand how to take an inconspicuous 
 part in the conversation, and to cross the 
 room for any other purpose than to take 
 up his violin made him quite giddy. 
 
 The table meanwhile still refused to 
 move. The excitement became general. 
 
 " Voyons, M. Lensky," called the Marquise 
 de C., suddenly turning to the young artist, 
 lorgnette at her eyes ; " if you should give 
 us a little music perhaps it would act upon 
 the legs of this stiff-necked table." 
 
 A man quick at repartee would have an- 
 swered the silly remark with a gay jest. 
 But Lensky grew deathly pale, sprang up ; 
 in that moment the resisting sacrifice of 
 magnetism began to totter and tremble. 
 
 Even Pachotin left his place near Natalie 
 in order to watch closely the interesting 
 spectacle. The magnetizers rose and, with 
 earnest, triumphant faces, accompanied the 
 table, which now seemed to have entered 
 into the spirit of the affair and took the 
 most remarkable steps with its wooden legs.
 
 CANNOT LET YOU GO AWAY ANGKY, SA1O SHE. 
 
 23.
 
 Asfrem. 23 
 
 " Vous partez ddjb, ? " asked Natalie, 
 coming up to the virtuoso. 
 
 " I am no longer needed," said Lensky, 
 with a glance at the table, and bowed with- 
 out touching the outstretched hand of the 
 young girl. 
 
 Without, in the vestibule just as he was 
 about to put his arms in the overcoat which 
 the servant held out to him, he saw the 
 princess, who had hastened after him. 
 
 " I cannot let you go away angry," said 
 she. " Come to-morrow to lunch. We 
 never receive in the morning, but you will 
 be welcome." 
 
 This time he took her hand in his, and 
 looked in her eyes with a peculiar mixture 
 of anger and tenderness. 
 
 " You know I do everything that you 
 wish," murmured he ; " but 
 
 " Well ? " She smiled pleasantly and en- 
 couragingly. He turned away his head 
 and went. 
 
 " Perhaps in reality she is only like the 
 others, but still she is bewitching ! " he
 
 24 Asbcin. 
 
 murmured, as he stumbled down the old 
 marble steps of the palace in the darkness. 
 
 Yes, she was bewitching. Many still re- 
 member how charming she was at that 
 time. She was from Moscow, and a true 
 Moscow woman ; that is to say, deeper, 
 more polished, more intellectual, than the 
 average St. Petersburg woman, whom a pert 
 Frenchman has described as " Parisiennes & 
 la sauce tartare." Lensky had met her the 
 former year at her relatives' in Petersburg, 
 where they had sent her for the ball season, 
 perhaps with the idea that she would make 
 a good match. 
 
 Her domestic circumstances were quite 
 disturbed. Her mother, a former beauty, 
 and who in her youth had been much ad- 
 mired at the court of Alexander I., could 
 not adapt herself to her poverty that is 
 to say, she absolutely could not exist on 
 the very moderate remains of a splendid 
 property which her husband had squan- 
 dered. She never complained ; she only
 
 Asbc'in. 2$ 
 
 never kept within her means. She was 
 always planning new reforms, but her most 
 saving plans always proved costly when 
 carried out. 
 
 When she summoned Natalie home from 
 St. Petersburg the former May she had just 
 formed a quite special resolution : she 
 would travel to a foreign country, in order, 
 as she expressed it, to be unconstrainedly 
 shabby and economical. Her unconstrained 
 shabbiness in Rome consisted in living in a 
 very picturesque palazzo with two maids 
 brought with her from Russia, a male fac- 
 totum, and a number of Italian assistants ; 
 by day, clad in a faded sky-blue peignoir, 
 stretched on a lounge, alternately reading 
 French novels and playing patience ; in the 
 evening, receiving an amusing assembly of 
 gens du monde and celebrities, among whom 
 the already mentioned magnetizer enjoyed 
 her especial sympathy, at dinner or tea. 
 Her economy culminated in locking up the 
 most trifling articles with great punctilious- 
 ness and never being able to find the keys ;
 
 26 Asbein. 
 
 for which reason the locksmith must be fre- 
 quently summoned. 
 
 The Russian maids naturally never moved 
 their hands, the Italian assistants wiped the 
 dust from one piece of furniture to another, 
 and so the household would really have 
 made quite an impression of having come 
 down in the world if the butler, whom 
 they had brought with them had not saved 
 it by his aristocratic prestige. A French- 
 man and valet of the deceased prince, Mon- 
 sieur Baptiste was not only outwardly deco- 
 rative, but of a useful nature. His principal 
 occupation consisted in sitting in the vesti- 
 bule, with finely-shaved upper lip and im- 
 posing side-whiskers, intrenched behind a 
 newspaper, and overpowering the creditors 
 if they ventured to present their unpaid 
 bills. 
 
 Lensky had resolved to leave Rome the 
 next day, and to ignore the invitation of 
 the princess. Returned to the hotel, he 
 immediately set about packing ; that is to
 
 Asbein. 27 
 
 say, he in all haste wrapped and squeezed 
 his effects together in any manner and 
 threw them in his trunk as one throws pota- 
 toes in a sack. Then he ordered his bill 
 from the waiter and a carriage for the next 
 morning. When the waiter at the ap- 
 pointed hour presented the bill and an- 
 nounced the carriage he showed him out. 
 From ten o'clock on he drew out his chro- 
 nometer every quarter of an hour ; at 
 twelve he appeared in the Palazzo Mor- 
 sini. 
 
 " You are punctual," said the princess, 
 stretching out her hand to him ; " that is 
 nice of you. I was terribly afraid that you 
 would not come. We are quite among 
 ourselves ; only mamma and we two. Does 
 that suit you ? " 
 
 Again she bent her head to one side and 
 looked at him with that peculiar glance, 
 behind whose roguishness a riddle was con- 
 cealed. What was it ? Something sweet, 
 perhaps something tender, earnest or only 
 a gay triumph or planned conquest ?
 
 28 Asbe'in. 
 
 Meanwhile it cost him the greatest self- 
 restraint not to fall at her feet immediately, 
 so charming and beautiful was she. Every- 
 thing about her was beautiful : her tall 
 but beautifully rounded figure ; her pale 
 oval face, framed in dark hair ; her remark- 
 able eyes, usually dreamily half closed, and 
 then suddenly looking at one so large and 
 full ; her long small hands and her little 
 feet. No Andalusian had a smaller, slen- 
 derer, more finely-arched foot than Natalie. 
 He had scarcely time to reply to her amia- 
 bility, when the butler announced that 
 luncheon was served, and they went into 
 the dining-room. 
 
 It was a peculiar luncheon. The old 
 princess presided in a wrapper. The luke- 
 warm dishes brought every day from a 
 restaurant in a tin box, which Lensky had 
 met on the steps were served by Monsieur 
 Baptiste on the largely shattered remnants 
 of a Florentine faience service with notice- 
 able correctness. A broad golden sunbeam 
 lay on the table between Lensky and Nata-
 
 Asbe'in. 29 
 
 lie and gave the most extravagantly unsuit- 
 able colors to the flowers which shed their 
 fragrance from a low Japanese porcelain 
 bowl in the middle of the table, and over 
 these flowers, sparkling like diamonds, he 
 looked at her. 
 
 She ate little and talked a great deal, 
 told all kinds of droll stories ; one witty an- 
 ecdote followed the other. He could not 
 weary of listening to her. Yes, even if what 
 she said had not interested him, he would 
 not tire of hearing her. The sweet, some- 
 what veiled tone of her voice seemed like a 
 caress to his sensitive ear. 
 
 " I would like to ask you something, Boris 
 Nikolaivitch," said the old princess later, 
 while they were taking coffee, in the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 " I am at your disposition entirely, Prin- 
 cess," Lensky hastened to assure her. 
 
 " It is about my violins," she began, in a 
 drawling, whining voice, which was her 
 manner, and meant nothing.
 
 3O Asbe'in. 
 
 " But, mamma," Natalie hastily interrupt- 
 ed her, " this is not the moment " 
 
 " Pray, permit me," said Lensky ; and 
 turning to the princess, " so it is about 
 your violins? " 
 
 " Yes. My husband you know what an 
 excellent player he was," continued the old 
 lady, " has left three violins. People have 
 always told me they were worth a small 
 fortune, but I did not wish to part with 
 them at any price. I ask you a souvenir. 
 But finally times are hard, and one must 
 not be too hard on the peasants, and, be- 
 sides, as none of my children play the vio- 
 lin, however musical they are well, I 
 would be very glad if you would try the 
 instruments and incidentally value them. 
 
 You could perhaps advise me yes 
 
 What is the matter, Natascha ? " 
 
 For Natalie had blushed to the roots of 
 her hair. Tears stood in her eyes. 
 
 Boris guessed that she feared he would 
 look upon the explanation of her mother 
 as a bid.
 
 Asbein. 3 1 
 
 " I remember the violins very well," he 
 hastened to assure her ; " especially one of 
 them excited my envy. It would please me 
 very much to try them again." 
 
 The servant brought the violins and at 
 the same time a pile of hastily snatched-up 
 violin music, smelling of dust, dampness, 
 and camphor. The wonderfully beautiful 
 instruments were in a pitiable condition 
 half of the strings were gone, those that re- 
 mained were brittle and dry. But still there 
 was a small stock of them. After Boris, 
 with the loving patience and surgical skill 
 with which only a true violinist handles an 
 Amati, had put it in a suitable condition 
 and then tuned it, he drew the bow softly 
 across it. A strangely sweet, tender, sad 
 sound vibrated through the great empty 
 room. It seemed as if the violin awoke 
 with a sigh from an enchanted sleep. A 
 pleasant shudder passed over Natalie. 
 
 Lensky bent his cheek to the splendid in- 
 strument like a lover. " Shall we try some- 
 thing?" said he, and took from the pile of
 
 32 Asbein. 
 
 notes a nocturne of Chopin, transposed for 
 the violin, opened the piano, the only good 
 and costly piece of furniture in the room, 
 and laid the notes on the music-rack. 
 " Now, Natalie Alexandrovna, may I beg 
 you ? " 
 
 Quite frightened by his artistic greatness 
 yes, trembling from charming embarrass- 
 ment she sat down at the piano. 
 
 His violin began to sing; how full and 
 soft, so delightfully languishing, and also 
 somewhat veiled, as is usually the case with 
 an instrument unused for years. 
 
 " How beautiful ! " murmured Natalie, 
 with eyes sparkling with animation. 
 
 " Yes, it is a splendid instrument," re- 
 plied Lensky. . " You cannot imagine what 
 it is to play on an instrument which under- 
 stands one. It is still only a little bit sleepy, 
 but we will awaken it." 
 
 He placed a sonata of Beethoven before 
 Natalie. They were alone. After the first 
 bar of the nocturne the princess had fallen 
 asleep, at the last she had waked, and had
 
 Asbein. 33 
 
 retired, with the remark that she could hear 
 much better in the adjoining room. 
 
 " Will you really tolerate my accompani- 
 ment?" murmured the young girl. 
 
 " And do you wish to hear again, vain 
 little princess, what I already told you in 
 St. Petersburg, that I have seldom found 
 a more sympathetic accompaniment than 
 yours?" he replied. 
 
 She was an uncommonly good pianist, 
 and with an unusually fine divination fol- 
 lowed all the shades of his art. One piece 
 followed the other. After awhile a certain 
 relaxation was perceptible in her. 
 " You are tired," said he, breaking off in 
 the middle of the first phrase of Mendels- 
 sohn's G-minor concerto. " I should not 
 have given you so much to do. Pardon 
 me." 
 
 " Oh, what does that matter," said she, 
 while she let her hands slide from the keys. 
 " It was splendid, only, do you see, I feel as 
 if I am a dragging-shoe for you. I would 
 like to have a wish, a great immoderate 
 3
 
 34 Asbein. 
 
 wish. I would like to hear you once alone, 
 without accompaniment, from your heart. 
 Give me one glance into your soul, make 
 your musical confession to me ! " 
 
 He felt a peculiar twitching and burning 
 in his finger-tips. He would rather have 
 killed himself than let her glance into his 
 inmost soul, as the condition of that soul 
 had been until then. 
 
 " Do not ask that of me," said he, hoarse- 
 
 ly- 
 
 " It was very immodest in me, excuse 
 me," said she hastily and confused. 
 
 " Oh, that is nothing," he assured her. 
 " Do you think that I will spare the little. 
 bit of pleasure that I can perhaps give you, 
 only but if you really wish it as far as I 
 am concerned 
 
 He took up the violin. 
 
 It was a different affair now. Dragging- 
 shoe or not in any case her accompani- 
 ment had had a calming and perhaps puri- 
 fying effect on his musical instincts. With 
 her he had played as a wonderfully deeply
 
 Asbe'in. 35 
 
 sensitive and technically cultivated virtu- 
 oso ; in spite of all the heartfelt fulness of 
 tone and vibrating passion, he had scarcely 
 passed the boundary of musical convention- 
 ality. It had been the highest possibility 
 of a quiet, artistic performance ; but what 
 Natalie now heard was no longer art, but 
 something at once splendid and fearful. It 
 was also no longer a violin on which he 
 played, but a strange, enchanted instru- 
 ment that she had never known formerly 
 and that he himself had invented ; an in- 
 strument from which everything that sounds 
 the sweetest and saddest on earth vibrated, 
 from the low voice of a woman to the soft, 
 complaining sigh of the waves dying on the 
 shore. A depth of genial musical eloquence 
 burst forth under his bow. Inconsolable 
 pain dry, hard, cutting ; tender teasing, 
 winning grace, mad rejoicing, a wild confu- 
 sion of passion and music, the height and 
 depth of neck-breaking technical extrava- 
 gance. 
 
 But what was most peculiar about his
 
 36 Asbetn. 
 
 playing, and had the most magical effect, 
 was neither the mad bravura nor the flatter- 
 ing grace, but something oppressive, mys- 
 terious, that crept maliciously into the heart 
 and veins, ensnaring and paralyzing a thing 
 of itself, a strange horror. Again and again, 
 like a mysterious call, appeared in his im- 
 provisation the same bewitching, exciting 
 succession of tones, taken from the Ara- 
 bian folk-songs, the devil's music. 
 
 Suddenly he seemed to be beside himself; 
 he drew the bow across the violin as if beset 
 by an untamable, passionate excitement. It 
 was no longer one violin which one heard ; 
 it was twenty violins, or, rather, twenty 
 demons, who howled and cried together. 
 
 With hands lightly folded in her lap, 
 and head leaned back against her chair, 
 Natalie had listened. In the beginning 
 she had been carried out of herself by a 
 feeling of painfully sweet happiness. But 
 now she felt strangely oppressed. It 
 seemed to her as if something pulled at 
 every fibre, every nerve, as if her heart was
 
 Asbein. 37 
 
 bursting. She would have liked to cry out 
 and hold her ears, and still did not move, 
 but listened eagerly to that piercing, wild, 
 passionate tone. Never had she felt within 
 her such hot, beating, intense life as in this 
 hour. Her whole past existence now 
 seemed to her like a long, stupid lethargy, 
 from which she had at last been awakened. 
 Tears' flowed from her eyes. Then his look 
 met hers. A kind of shame at his brutality 
 overcame him, and his playing died away 
 in sad, sweet, anguished tenderness. With 
 contracted brows and trembling hands, he 
 laid down the violin. " You wished it ! " 
 said he. " You should not have asked it of 
 me. I can refuse you nothing. God ! how 
 pale you are ! I have made you ill ! " 
 
 She smiled at his anxious exaggeration, 
 then murmured softly, as if in a dream : 
 " It was wonderfully beautiful, and I shall 
 never forget it never forget it, only " 
 
 " What have you to object ? " 
 
 "Shall I really tell you?" 
 
 " Certainly ; I beg you to."
 
 38 Asbe'in. 
 
 "Well," she began, hesitatingly, with a 
 somewhat uneasy smile, as if she was afraid 
 of wounding his irritable artistic sensibility, 
 " I ask myself how one can abuse an instru- 
 ment from which one can charm such be- 
 witching harmonies, and which one loves as 
 you love your violin, as you have just now 
 abused it ? " 
 
 He was silent for a moment, surprised, 
 looked at the violin with a loving, compas- 
 sionate glance, as if it were a living being. 
 Then he passed his hand across his forehead. 
 
 " I do not know how it is," said he, con- 
 fusedly. " Sometimes something comes 
 over me. Ah ! if you knew what it is to 
 have, all one's life, such a sultry, sneaking 
 thunderstorm in one's veins as I have. 
 Sometimes it bursts forth ; it must have 
 vent. I cannot rule myself. Teach me 
 how! " 
 
 He said that, so naively ashamed, quite 
 pleadingly, like a great child ; he had 
 strangely warm, touching tones in his deep, 
 rough voice.
 
 Asbe'in. 39 
 
 When Lensky presented himself again, 
 the next day, in the Palazzo Morsini, and, 
 indeed, this time to arrange the purchase of 
 the wonderful violin, the princess called out 
 gayly to him : 
 
 " The violins are no longer to be had. I 
 have bought all three. I gave all my sav- 
 ings for them. If you wish to play on 
 them, you must come here. But you 
 may come as often as you wish ! " 
 
 " For how long?" asked he, with a pecul- 
 iar tremble in his voice. 
 
 She turned away her head. After awhile 
 she said, apparently irrelevantly, with her 
 gay, ingenuous smile, that still never quite 
 banished the sadness from her pale face : 
 " Do you know that we are really as poor 
 as church mice? It is comical. Mamma 
 consoles herself with the thought that I 
 will make a good match. If she should be 
 mistaken, what a tragedy ! " 
 
 She laughed merrily. What did she 
 mean by that ?
 
 4O Asbetn. 
 
 He came oftener and oftener to the old 
 palace in the Via Giulia ; came every day, 
 indeed. 
 
 Formerly intercourse with women of rank 
 had always formed only a short parenthesis 
 in his otherwise dissolute life. Now the 
 couple of hours, or sometimes they were 
 only minutes, which he daily passed with 
 the Assanows were the key-note of all the 
 rest of his existence. How happy he felt 
 with them ! 
 
 If elsewhere the great society ladies had 
 raved over the artist Lensky to an immod- 
 erate extent, they had quite ignored the 
 man. But with the Assanows it was differ- 
 ent, or at least it seemed GO. His fame was 
 not put forward from morning to night. 
 There were days in which his violin-playing 
 was not even mentioned. The artist stopped 
 in the background, and in association with 
 Natalie and her mother he was no star, 
 no lion, only a very wise, peculiar, sympa- 
 thetic man, who pleased quite aside from 
 his artistic gifts. Besides, with them he
 
 Asbe'in. 41 
 
 appeared differently than with any one else 
 in the world. 
 
 His petulant defiance disappeared, as 
 well as the helplessness for which it was a 
 shield. 
 
 He was completely uncultivated from the 
 foundation. Grown up among ignorant 
 men who profited by his early unfolding 
 talent, and misused it in order to earn 
 money thereby ; sentenced consequently 
 as a child to just as many hours of hard 
 musical practice as his poor still undevel- 
 oped body could endure, he had, at fourteen 
 years of age, when he could barely read 
 and write, not even the consciousness of his 
 lack of knowledge. That came later, came 
 when great people began to be interested 
 in him. But then it was painful and humil- 
 iating beyond measure. 
 
 Whatever one can acquire in later years 
 he acquired. Another would have made a 
 show of the astonishing amount of reading 
 which he had accomplished in the course of 
 years, but he never learned to display his
 
 42 Asbetn. 
 
 lately won intellectual riches with grace. 
 He had not the frivolity of superficial men. 
 Much too clever not to be conscious that 
 his little bit of supplementary cultivation 
 was still only patchwork, even if made of 
 very noble, large patches, he confined his 
 remarks in society, if the conversation was 
 upon anything but music, to a few heavy 
 commonplaces. 
 
 With Natalie and her mother it was quite 
 different. He never, indeed, spoke very 
 much, but everything that he said was 
 characteristic, stimulating, interesting, and 
 as, in spite of his sad lack of education, he 
 was free from narrow provincialisms and af- 
 fectations, and with the capability of assim- 
 ilation of all barbarians, understood exactly 
 Natalie's pure and poetic being, he never 
 wounded her by a coarse lack of tact, but 
 attracted her doubly by the austere uncon- 
 ventionality of his manner. 
 
 Every day he became more sympathetic 
 to her ; she had long been indispensable to 
 him.
 
 Asbem. 43 
 
 He was suddenly struck with horror of 
 his past. It seemed to him as if everything 
 that was beautiful in his life had just begun 
 when her pure bright apparition had en- 
 tered it. She had brought a cooling, heal- 
 ing element to his sultry existence. It was 
 as if one had opened a window in a room 
 full of oppressive vapor a great breath of 
 sweet, spicy air had purified the atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
 A large part of his intellectual self which 
 had formerly lain fallow, now grew and blos- 
 somed. Often, in the morning, he accom- 
 panied the ladies to some art collection. 
 Very frequently he occupied a place in the 
 carriage which the princess had hired for 
 their drives. 
 
 Every one looked after the carriage, and 
 observed with the same interest the wonder- 
 fully beautiful girl, and the great artist, who 
 was not handsome, but whose face once 
 seen could never be forgotten. 
 
 What was most remarkable about it was 
 the difference between the expression of his
 
 44 Asbe'in. 
 
 eyes and that of his mouth, a difference 
 which betrayed the entire quality of his in- 
 ner nature. While his eyes had a spying, 
 at times quite enthusiastic, expression, 
 around the mouth was a trace of intense 
 earthly thirst for enjoyment. 
 
 This mingling predestinated him to that 
 eternal discontent of certain great natures 
 who can just as little accustom themselves, 
 on the earth, to a condition of bloodless 
 asceticism as to one of mindless material- 
 ism. The first desires no enjoyment of the 
 world, the second pleases itself with what- 
 ever is to be had in the world. Those men 
 only who seek the heavenly spark in earth- 
 ly joys remain forever deceived here. He 
 was destined never to cease to seek it. 
 Even in gray old age, when his finely cut 
 lips were satiated with enjoyment, and were 
 fixed in a grimace of incessant, sad disgust, 
 his eyes still sought it. 
 
 His colleagues in St. Petersburg asked 
 each other what kept him so long in Rome.
 
 Asbetn. 45 
 
 He wrote one of them that he was working, 
 and indeed he did work. Through his soul 
 vibrated melodies full of bewitching sad 
 loveliness, full of the rejoicing and com- 
 plaint of a longing which could not yet at- 
 tain the longed-for happiness. 
 
 And there in Rome, in those mild fra- 
 grant spring nights, he wrote a cyclus of 
 songs which might rank at the side of the 
 most beautiful musical lyrics ever written. 
 
 In spite of their full richness of melody, 
 his earlier compositions had something too 
 glaring, overladen, and trivially pleasing; 
 they were too much influenced by his vir- 
 tuosity to please for themselves. In his 
 Roman cyclus of songs he showed himself 
 for the first time a great musician. And 
 as until then he had distrusted his talent 
 as composer, he was pleasantly astonished 
 over his own achievement. 
 
 He always worked at night. His writing- 
 table stood in front of the window of his 
 room which looked out on the Piazza di 
 Spagna. Very often his glance wandered
 
 46 Asbetn. 
 
 there. A dark-blue heaven lighted by 
 thousands of stars arched above the broad, 
 irregular place, over the antique columns, 
 from whose height a modern art nonentity 
 looks down on Rome. 
 
 All was silent, only the water, the reso- 
 nant soul of Rome, tittered and sobbed in the 
 basins and fountains, and spouted up jubi- 
 lantly in damp silver streams, greeting from 
 afar the unattainable heavens, and all the 
 tittering, sobbing, and rejoicing united in a 
 long vibrating broken chord. 
 
 Still vibrating in every fibre at the recol- 
 lection of Natalie's farewell smile, he sat at 
 his shaky table and wrote. The mild night 
 wind, fragrant with the kisses which it had 
 stolen from the magnolia and orange blos- 
 soms, crept in to him and caressed his hot 
 cheeks. He inhaled it eagerly. He had 
 often been warned of the Roman night air, 
 but he did not think of the warning, and if 
 he had ? He was in that happy mood in 
 which man no longer believes in sickness 
 and death.
 
 Asbe'in. 47 
 
 The hateful melancholy which as he said 
 often pressed him down to the ground, and 
 tormented him with predictions of his final 
 annihilation, was gone. He no longer saw, 
 as formerly, an open grave at his feet. 
 Heaven had opened to him. An indescrib- 
 able, light, elevating feeling had overpow- 
 ered him; he no longer felt the weight of 
 his body. Had his wings, then, grown in 
 Rome ? 
 
 He did not think what would come of all 
 this. He did not wish to think of it ; did 
 not wish to see clearly. With closed eyes 
 he walked through life the angels led him. 
 
 It was the beginning of May, and he had 
 finished his cyclus of songs. With a beat- 
 ing heart he entered the Palazzo Morsini to 
 ask Natalie whether he might dedicate it to 
 her. 
 
 The young princess was not at home, but 
 her mother would be very happy to see 
 him, they told him.
 
 48 Asbein. 
 
 It was very hot, the blinds were all low- 
 ered. The princess lay on a lounge and 
 fanned herself with a peacock feather fan. 
 
 After she had complained of the heat, 
 she began to speak to him of all kinds of 
 family affairs. Her son had the best of 
 opportunities to make a career for himself, 
 said she ; her eldest daughter, who was far 
 less pretty than Natalie, added the princess, 
 had married very well ; her husband was 
 indeed a wealthy diplomat. " Mots, je suis 
 pauvre" concluded the old lady ; " but I 
 could live quite without care, if Natalie were 
 only married. But she will hear nothing 
 of that. She lets the best years of her life 
 pass, and if you only knew what good 
 matches she has refused. Pachotin has 
 already offered himself twice to her, and if 
 you please " 
 
 Just then a gay voice interrupted the 
 inconsolable elegy. " Mamma, how can 
 any one boast so ? " Natalie had entered, 
 a large black hat on her head, in her arms a 
 huge bunch of flowers.
 
 Asbe'in. 49 
 
 " I did not boast I complained," replied 
 the old woman, sighing. 
 
 After Natalie had greeted Lensky with 
 her usual friendliness, she laid the flowers 
 on the table and arranged them in the 
 vases which an Italian chambermaid had 
 brought her. 
 
 " Ah, Natalie, why will you have none of 
 them?" sighed the princess. 
 
 " Little mother, I can love but once," 
 replied Natalie, bending her brown head 
 over the flowers. " I have told you I will 
 not marry until I have found some one 
 quite extraordinary a hero or a genius." 
 
 " Am I dreaming, or did she look at me 
 with those words ? " Lensky asked himself. 
 " But why did she turn her eyes away so 
 quickly when they met mine?" 
 
 Meanwhile the princess said : " Yes, if 
 all girls wished to wait thus ! " 
 
 " I am not like all girls," said Natalie, 
 laughing. " Most girls have hearts like 
 hand-organs, which every one can play ; oth- 
 ers have hearts like ^Eolian harps, on which
 
 50 Asbe'in. 
 
 no one can play, and still they always 
 vibrate so sympathetically for the world ; 
 and still other girls ' she interrupted 
 herself to break a superfluous leaf from a 
 magnolia twig. 
 
 The princess, who seemed to lay little 
 weight on Natalie's nai've comparisons, 
 fanned herself indifferently with her pea- 
 cock fan, but Lensky repeated, " Well, 
 Natalie Alexandrovna, other girls " 
 
 " Other girls have hearts like Amati vio- 
 lins ; if a bungler touches them there is a 
 horrible discord ; but if a true artist comes 
 who understands it, then 
 
 This exaggerated remark she had made 
 in a voice trembling between mockery and 
 tenderness, and incessantly occupied with 
 the arrangement of her flowers. 
 
 Without ending the last sentence, she 
 broke off, and bent her head to the right to 
 observe a combination of white roses and 
 heliotrope with a thoughtful look. 
 
 The princess yawned from heat and dis- 
 content. " Leave me in peace from your
 
 Asbe'in. 5 1 
 
 musical comparisons, Natascha," said she. 
 " Besides, I can assure you that no one 
 spoils a fine instrument quicker than one of 
 your great virtuosos. When I think how 
 Franz Liszt ruined our Pleyel in a single 
 evening ; it was no longer fit even for a 
 conservatory." 
 
 " Violins are not ruined as quickly as 
 pianos," said Natalie, laughing ; then, still 
 speaking to the flowers, she said : " Don't 
 you think, little mother, that if such a piano 
 had a soul, a mind, it would rather rejoice to 
 really live for once under the hands of a 
 great master, and even if it were to die of 
 the joy, than merely to exist for a half-cen- 
 tury in a noble, charming room, as a care- 
 fully preserved showpiece ? " 
 
 Again it seemed to Lensky that she 
 looked at him, and again she turned away 
 her head when their looks met. " You are 
 astonished at this great expenditure for 
 flowers ? " she remarked. " We expect 
 guests this evening- my cousins from St. 
 Petersburg, the Jeliagins. You know them,
 
 52 Asbetn. 
 
 and I shall try to draw their critical looks 
 away from the holes in the furniture cover- 
 ing to these beautiful color effects. So ! 
 Now I have finished ; here are a few May- 
 bells left for your button-hole. Ah ! really, 
 you never wear flowers ! " 
 
 " Give them to me," said he, contracting 
 his brows gloomily. She smiled at him 
 without saying anything. Then something 
 scratched at the door. 
 
 " Please open it, Boris Nikolaivitch," she 
 asked. 
 
 He did so ; her large dog, a gigantic 
 Scotch greyhound, came in, and immediate- 
 ly springing up on his beautiful mistress, he 
 laid both front paws on her shoulders. She 
 took his heavy head between her slender 
 hands, and murmuring tender, caressing 
 words to him, she kissed him twice, three 
 times, on the forehead. 
 
 Lensky took leave soon after without 
 having mentioned his song cyclus. His 
 mind was in an uproar. " Is she only co- 
 quetting with me ? " he asked himself, " or
 
 Asbein. 53 
 
 or " A passionate joy throbbed in his 
 veins, then suddenly an icy shudder ran 
 over him. " And if she is only like all the 
 others ! " 
 
 At his departure Natalie had said to him : 
 " You will come this evening, Boris Niko- 
 laivitch, in spite of this boring Petersburg 
 invasion ? I beg you will, vous serez le coin 
 bleu de mon del ! " 
 
 The evening came. 
 
 A Roman sirocco evening, with an ap- 
 proaching thunderstorm that hung heavily 
 around the horizon and would not lift. 
 
 The heavily perfumed sultry air pene- 
 trated through the drawn curtains into the 
 Assanows' drawing-room. The Jeliagins 
 had brought a couple of Parisian friends 
 with them, and naturally Pachotin was not 
 missing. A deathly ennui reigned. They 
 spoke of Parisian fashions, of the Empress 
 Eugenie's new court ; they complained of 
 the new cook in the Hotel de 1'Europe, and 
 of the heat.
 
 54 Asbein. 
 
 Then they spoke of national dances. The 
 Jeliagins had recently travelled in Spain 
 and were enthusiastic about the fandango. 
 The Parisians had heard there was nothing 
 more graceful than a well-danced Polish 
 mazurka ; could none of the Russian ladies 
 dance one for them ? a very bold request, 
 but they were all friends. 
 
 The Jeliagins announced that Natalie 
 danced the mazurka like a true woman of 
 Warsaw. They left her no peace. 
 
 " Oh, I will put on no more airs," said 
 she, " if one of the ladies will take a seat at 
 the piano, so 
 
 To go to the piano, even were it only 
 to play dance-music, in Lensky's pres- 
 ence ! The ladies swooned at the mere 
 thought. 
 
 " Very well, then you must give up the 
 mazurka," said Natalie, decidedly. 
 
 " Ask Boris Nikolaivitch," whispered one 
 of the St. Petersburg women. " If he is 
 the first violinist of his time, he is also an 
 excellent pianist."
 
 Asbe'tn. 55 
 
 " No, no," said Natalie, firmly, and then 
 her great brilliant eyes met Lensky's. 
 
 Although at that time he maintained his 
 artistic dignity with quite childish exaggera- 
 tion, he smiled very good-naturedly and 
 said, " I see very well that you place no 
 confidence in me ; you think I cannot catch 
 your mazurka music." 
 
 " No, no, no ! " said Natalie. " You shall 
 not degrade your art." 
 
 "And do you really think it would be de- 
 grading to improvise a musical background 
 for your performance ? I should so like 
 to see you dance." And he stood up and 
 went to the piano. 
 
 Such pretty little phrases were formerly 
 not his style. He had, as Natalie had often 
 laughingly told him, no talent for fioriture 
 in conversation. 
 
 The Petersburg ladies looked at each 
 other. " How polite he has become ! You 
 have changed him, Natascha," whispered 
 they. 
 
 Meanwhile Pachotin gave Natalie his hand.
 
 56 Asbe'in. 
 
 Lensky had seized the opportunity of 
 admiring her grace with joy. He had never 
 thought how painfully it would affect him 
 to see her dance with another man. He 
 did not take his eyes off her, and mean- 
 while improvised the most bewitching devil's 
 music. 
 
 She wore a white dress, her neck and 
 arms were bare, and around her waist was a 
 Circassian girdle embroidered with gold 
 and silver. One hand in her partner's, the 
 other hanging loosely at her side, her head 
 slightly on one side, she moved safely over 
 the dangerously smooth surface of the 
 marble floor. At the beginning, pale as 
 usual, except her dark-red lips, she looked 
 quite indifferent ; gradually she became 
 warmer and more animated, a slight blush 
 crept into her cheeks, her eyes beamed as 
 if in a happy dream, around her lips trem- 
 bled the sad expression which the feeling of 
 intense pleasure often causes us, and her 
 movements at the same time had some- 
 thing indescribably gentle and supple.
 
 1-FK. 
 
 AT THE liEGlNMNG, PALE AS USUAL, EXCEPT THE DARK-KED LIPS, SHE LOOKED 
 QUITE INDIFFERENT ; GRADUALLY SHE BECAME WARMER AND MORE ANIMATF.D, A 
 SLIGHT BLUSH CREPT INTO HER CHEEKS, HER EVES BEAMED AS IN A HAPPY DREAM
 
 Asbe'in. 57 
 
 Pachotin, most correctly attired, with a 
 collar which reached to the tips of his ears 
 and faultless yellow gloves, hopped around 
 her in the true affected knightly grimacing 
 Polish-mazurka manner. 
 
 " An ape ! " thought Lensky to himself ; 
 " but how handsome, how distinguished he 
 is ! almost as handsome as she ! " and sud- 
 denly the question occurred to him : " Is 
 it my music or his presence which animates 
 her ? And if it were my music ! Never- 
 theless, she will still marry him ; yes, even 
 if she were in love with me, still she would 
 marry him, and not me ! What a fool I was 
 to imagine " 
 
 After Pachotin had soberly placed his 
 heels together and acknowledged his deep 
 devotion to the lady by a suitable courtesy, 
 the mazurka was a't an end. 
 
 Quite beside themselves with enthusi- 
 asm, the Parisians surrounded Natalie. 
 When she wished to thank Lensky he had 
 disappeared. It was his manner many 
 times to withdraw without taking leave, but
 
 58 Asbein. 
 
 still to-day it made Natalie uneasy. She 
 was vibrating with a great excitement, the 
 air seemed to her suffocatingly hot, she 
 drew off her gloves ; the noise of the 
 prattling voices became unbearable to her, 
 and she passed through the second empty 
 drawing-room, into the arched loggia set 
 with blooming orange-trees, from which one 
 looked across the court-yard to the Tiber. 
 
 The storm still hung on the horizon. 
 Heavy masses of clouds, shot through by 
 pale lightning, towered, on the other side of 
 the river, above the gloomy architecture of 
 the Trastevere. They had not yet reached 
 the moon, which, palely shining, stood high 
 in the heavens. Its light illumined the 
 court, with its statues and bas-reliefs. The 
 air was sultry. 
 
 Natalie drew a deep breath. Suddenly 
 she discovered Lensky. He was staring 
 down on the Tiber, which, rolling by in its 
 bed, incessantly sighed, as if from sorrow at 
 its sad lot, which compelled it continually to 
 hasten past everything.
 
 Asbe'in. 59 
 
 Could one really take it amiss in the 
 stream if it sometimes overflowed its banks 
 in order to carry away with it some of the 
 beautiful objects, near which, condemned to 
 perpetual wandering, it might not remain 
 standing? 
 
 "Ah! you here?" said Natalie. "I 
 thought you had taken French leave. I was 
 vexed with you." 
 
 "So!" 
 
 "Yes, because because I was sorry not 
 to be able to thank you. It was really " 
 
 " Do not speak so," said he, quite rough- 
 ly ; " just as if you did not know that there 
 is nothing in the world, nothing in my 
 power that I would not do for you ! " 
 
 She bent her head back a little and 
 smiled at. him in a friendly way, but as if 
 his words had not surprised her in the 
 slightest. " You are very good to me," said 
 she. 
 
 He felt strangely thus alone with her in 
 this sweet-perfumed, melancholy, intoxicat- 
 ing sultriness, alone with this happiness that
 
 60 Asbein. 
 
 was so near him, and which he was afraid of 
 frightening away by an unseemly impru- 
 dence. He felt by turns hot and cold. 
 Why did she not go ? 
 
 She rested her hands on the marble bal- 
 ustrade of the loggia and bending over it 
 she murmured: " How beautiful ! oh, how 
 wonderfully beautiful ! And it is so tire- 
 some in there ; do you not find it so, Boris 
 Nikolaivitch ? " 
 
 His throat contracted, he felt that he was 
 about to lose control of himself. 
 
 " Shall I play ? " he asked. " I will do it 
 willingly for you." 
 
 " Oh, no ! Why should you play to those 
 stupid people in there ? " replied she. " I 
 would be prepared to hear, in the middle of 
 the G minor concerto, the question : ' Before 
 I forget it, can you not give me the address 
 of a good shoemaker in Rome ? ' You know 
 how such things vex me." 
 
 "Is she coquetting with me, or ?" 
 he asked himself again. 
 
 She stoo'd before him with her enchant-
 
 "OH, YOU DEAR, DE^K GIKL!" HE MURMURED, WITH HOARSE, SCARCELY AUDIBLE 
 VOICK, AND 1'RESSED IT TO HIS LIPS. 
 
 CRIMSONING. SHE TORE AWAY HER HAND. 
 
 /. bl.
 
 Asbein. 61 
 
 ing face, and her tender glance met his. 
 She did not know that she tormented him. 
 In spite of her twenty-one years, she had 
 the boundless innocence of a girl whose 
 mind has never been desecrated by the 
 knowledge of passion, a degree of inno- 
 cence in which men do not believe. 
 
 "Is she coquetting?" His heart beat 
 to bursting, and suddenly, when she quite 
 unconstrainedly came one step nearer him, 
 he took her hand. " Oh, you dear, dear 
 girl! "he murmured, with hoarse, scarcely 
 audible voice, and pressed it to his lips. 
 
 Crimsoning, she tore away her hand. 
 " For Heaven's sake, what are you think- 
 ing of ? " said she, and started back with a 
 proud, almost scornful gesture. 
 
 Then a horrible anger overcame him. 
 
 " I was stupid, I was mistaken in you. 
 You think no more nobly or better than the 
 others ! " he burst out. 
 
 " I do not understand you. What do you 
 mean ?" murmured she. 
 
 What else had she to ask ? Why did she
 
 62 Asbe'in. 
 
 not go, but stood before him, as if par- 
 alyzed, with her pale, seductive loveliness, 
 surrounded by moonlight ? 
 
 " I mean that if you observe our rela- 
 tions from this conventional standpoint, 
 your behavior to me was a heartless, arro- 
 gant abomination." 
 
 " But, Boris Nikolaivitch, that is all 
 foolishness. You do not know what you 
 are saying," she stammered, quite beside 
 herself. 
 
 " So ! I do not know what I am saying? ' 
 He had now stepped close up to her. " And 
 if I, mistaking your coquetries yes, that 
 is the word ; blush now and be a little 
 ashamed if I, mistaking your coquetries, 
 have permitted myself to petition for your 
 hand ? Oh, how you start ! Naturally, you 
 had never thought of such a thing! " 
 
 His voice was hoarse and rasping, his face 
 very calm and as if petrified by anger and 
 such a mental torment as he had never be- 
 fore experienced. " But go ! Why do you 
 stay and torture me? I will no longer look
 
 Asbein. 63 
 
 at you. I abominate you, and still I love 
 you so passionately, so madly ! " 
 
 Yes, why did she still not go? He could 
 endure it no longer he clasped her to his 
 breast and kissed her with his hot, burning 
 lips. Then she pushed him from her and 
 fled. 
 
 He looked after her. Now all was over. 
 For one moment he remained standing 
 on the same spot, then, with deeply bowed 
 head, dragging his feet along slowly, he 
 passed through the vestibule and left, with- 
 out thinking of his hat, which he had left 
 in the drawing-room. 
 
 For the remainder of the evening Nata- 
 lie's whole being betrayed only haste and 
 uneasiness. She spoke more and quicker 
 than formerly, laughed frequently, and told 
 the gayest stories. 
 
 When her Petersburg cousins wished to 
 tease her with Lensky's enthusiasm for her, 
 and laughingly called him " your genius," 
 she mentioned him indifferently, quite dis- 
 approvingly, shrugged her shoulders over
 
 64 Asbe'in. 
 
 his talent as composer yes, even found 
 fault with his playing. She was friendly, 
 quite inviting, to Pachotin ; she no longer 
 knew what she did, only when he wished 
 to give the conversation a more earnest 
 turn she broke it off suddenly and remorse- 
 lessly. 
 
 When at last, at last, the drawing-room 
 *was empty and she might withdraw, she 
 locked herself in her room, threw herself 
 down before the holy picture before which 
 she always said her evening prayer. But, 
 however she tried to pray, she could not. 
 She did not know for what she should pray. 
 Her cheeks burned with dreadful shame. 
 How could he have so far forgotten himself 
 with her! 
 
 She threw open a window. What did it 
 matter to her that they said the Roman 
 night air was poisonous? She would have 
 liked to take the Roman fever, would have 
 liked to die. Her window opened on the 
 street. The Via Giulia was divided by the 
 moonlight into two parts, one light and one
 
 Asbein. 65 
 
 dark. All was quiet, empty, deserted. 
 Then there was a sound of slow, dragging 
 steps, and two lowered voices whispered 
 down there in the silent solitude. It was 
 probably a pair of belated lovers, and sud- 
 denly there was a soft, tender sound through 
 the mild May night. She caught her breath, 
 closed the window, and turned back to her 
 room. Half-undressed, she sat on the edge 
 of her little cool white bed and thought 
 again and again of the same thing of his 
 kiss. 
 
 "Why has 'your genius' so suddenly 
 tired of Rome? He leaves to-day," re- 
 marked the Jeliagins, who had come to 
 lunch the next morning in the Palazzo Mor- 
 sini. 
 
 They were staying at the same hotel as 
 Lensky that is to say, in the " Europe " 
 and had spoken to him in the court of the 
 hotel. " He looked miserably," they added, 
 with a haughty glance. " Either he has Ro- 
 man fever or you have broken his heart." 
 
 5
 
 66 Asbein. 
 
 Then they spoke of other things. Soon 
 after lunch they went away. 
 
 Meanwhile Lensky stumbled up and 
 down, up and down, in his room. A sick 
 lady whose room was beneath his, at last 
 sent up by the waiter and begged him to 
 be quiet. 
 
 His departure was fixed for seven o'clock ; 
 it struck one, it struck four. 
 
 Should he leave without having made a 
 parting call upon the Princess Assanow 
 run away like any fellow who has borrowed 
 thirty rubles? "But they will not receive 
 me," he thought, " if the princess has told 
 her mother. But, no, she will have said 
 nothing ; she is too proud. What a lovely 
 being ! How could I only Oh, if I 
 might at least ask her pardon ! But what 
 kind of a pardon would it be ? Such a 
 thing a woman pardons only if she loves, 
 and how should she love me, a beast as I 
 am? She must have an aversion for me." 
 
 He resolved to take leave by letter. He 
 tried it in French and Russian, but could
 
 Asbein. 67 
 
 complete nothing. Ashamed of his laugha- 
 ble incapacity, he tore up the different sheets 
 of letter-paper adorned with " Des circon- 
 stances impre'vues" or " La reconnaissance sin- 
 cere que" 
 
 Five o'clock ! He hastened across the 
 courtyard, sprang into a carriage. " Palazzo 
 Morsini, Via Giulia," he called to the coach- 
 man, and commanded him to drive fast. 
 
 When he ascended the well-known stairs 
 he asked himself a last time if he would be 
 received. 
 
 The servant conducted him to the bou- 
 doir of the old princess. She broke off her 
 game of patience to greet him, only be- 
 trayed a slight astonishment at his sudden 
 departure, and said that she and Natalie 
 should soon follow his example and go 
 North, probably to Baden-Baden, for the 
 heat in Rome began to be unbearable. 
 Then she rang for the maid, whom she 
 commissioned to tell the princess that 
 Boris Nikolaivitch had come to take leave. 
 
 Lensky waited in breathless excitement.
 
 68 Asbein. 
 
 The maid came back with the decision : 
 The princess was very ill and had lain 
 down with a headache. 
 
 " Quite as I expected," thought Lensky, 
 while the princess remarked politely, " She 
 will be very sorry." 
 
 Then he kissed the old lady's hand, she 
 touched his forehead with her lips in the 
 Russian custom, wished him a pleasant 
 journey, he thanked her a last time for all 
 the friendship she had shown him, and went 
 went quite slowly through the large 
 empty room, in which the dust danced in a 
 broad sunbeam which lay across the mar- 
 ble floor, and in which the flowers which 
 she had arranged so charmingly yesterday 
 now stood withered in their vases. 
 
 " Shall I never see her again, never 
 never ? " he asked himself. He would have 
 given his life for a last friendly glance from 
 her. What use was it to think of that it 
 was all over ! 
 
 Then suddenly he heard something near 
 him like the rustling of an angel's wings.
 
 Asbein. 69 
 
 He looked up. Natalie stood before him, 
 deathly pale, with black rings around her 
 eyes, with carelessly arranged hair. A pas- 
 sionate pity, a tender anxiety overcame 
 him. " How she has suffered through my 
 offence ! " he told himself and rushed up to 
 her. " Natalie, can you forgive me ? " he 
 called. 
 
 Her great, sad eyes were raised to him 
 with an expression of helpless, ashamed 
 tenderness, as if they would say, " And you 
 ask that ! " She moved her lips, but no 
 word came. 
 
 He held her little hands trembling with 
 fever in his. She did not draw them away. 
 He grew dizzy. For one moment they were 
 both silent, then he whispered, drawing 
 her closer to him, " Do you love me, then ? 
 Could you resolve to bear my name, to 
 share my whole existence ? " 
 
 Scarcely audibly she whispered, " Yes." 
 
 We are sometimes frightened at the sud- 
 den fulfilment of a wish which we have be- 
 lieved unattainable.
 
 70 Asbein. 
 
 And as Lensky under the weight of his 
 new, strange happiness sank at the feet of 
 his betrothed and covered the hem of her 
 dress with tears and kisses, in the midst of 
 his happiness he felt an oppressed anxiety, 
 a great fear. 
 
 A few days after Natalie's betrothal there 
 was a short, imperious ring at the door of 
 the artistic gray anteroom, in which the 
 imposing butler, as usual, sat majestically 
 intrenched behind his newspaper. 
 
 Monsieur Baptiste raised his eyebrows ; 
 he did not like this imperious manner of 
 ringing a bell, and did not hurry at all to 
 open the door. Only when the ring was re- 
 peated did he unlock it. His face changed 
 color from surprise, and he bowed quite to 
 the ground when he recognized in the en- 
 tering gentleman the young prince, the 
 eldest brother of Natalie, Sergei Alexandro- 
 vitch Assanow. 
 
 "Are the ladies at home?" he asked 
 shortly in a high, somewhat vexed voice
 
 Asbe'tn. 71 
 
 without further noticing the respectful 
 greeting of the servant. 
 
 " The princess is still in bed, but the 
 Princess Natalie is already up." 
 
 " Good. Do not disturb the princess, and 
 announce me to Princess Natalie," said As- 
 sanow, and with that he followed the but- 
 ler, who was hastening before him, into the 
 drawing-room. There he sat down in a ma- 
 hogany arm-chair upholstered in faded yel- 
 low damask, crossed his legs, rested his tall 
 shining hat on his knee and looked around 
 him. On one of his hands was a gray glove, 
 the other was bare. It was a long, slender, 
 aristocratic hand, very well cared for, too 
 white for a man's hand, but bony, and with 
 strongly marked veins on the back a hand 
 which one saw would certainly hold firmly 
 what it had once grasped, and a hand which 
 was capable of no caress. For the rest it 
 would have been hard to judge anythin'g 
 from the exterior of the prince. He was a 
 tall slender man of about thirty, with light- 
 brown hair that was already thin on the top
 
 72 Asbet'n. 
 
 of the head, and a face smoothly shaven 
 except a long mustache which in the cut of 
 the delicate regular features resembled his 
 sister's not unnoticeably. But the expres- 
 sion, that animating soul of beauty which 
 lent Natalie's pale face more charm than 
 the regularity of the lines, was lacking in 
 him. Everything about him was as correct 
 as his profile his high stiff collar, the drab 
 gaiters which showed beneath his trousers, 
 his light-gray gloves with black stitching. 
 He was the type of the Russian state official 
 of the highest category, the type of men 
 who in public life only permit themselves 
 to think as far -as will not injure their ad- 
 vancement. 
 
 As he was a very clever, sharp, judging 
 man withal, he revenged himself for the 
 discomfort which the systematic crippling 
 of his intellectual capacity in the service of 
 the state caused _ him, by devoting all the 
 superfluity of his unneeded intellect to 
 shedding an unpleasantly glaring intellect- 
 ual light about him, and condemning as
 
 Asbe'in. 73 
 
 absolute foolishness all those little poetic, 
 pleasant trifles which make life beautiful. 
 
 He called this manner of pleasing him- 
 self doing his duty. 
 
 Strangely enough, with all his sterile dry- 
 ness he was a true lover of music. He 
 played the 'cello as well as a man of the 
 world can permit himself to that is to say, 
 with an elegant inaccuracy, together with 
 pedantic bursts of virtuosity, and in con- 
 sequence had cultivated Lensky's acquaint- 
 ance assiduously. 
 
 While he waited for his sister he looked 
 around the room distrustfully with his 
 handsome dark but unpleasantly piercing 
 eyes. He grew uneasy. The atmosphere 
 of the whole room was quite permeated 
 with happiness. Everything seemed to feel 
 happy here the shabby furniture, the music 
 which lay somewhat confusedly on the 
 
 * 
 
 piano. On the table near which Sergei 
 Alexandrovitch sat stood a basket of pale 
 Malmaison roses, under the piano was a 
 violin case.
 
 74 Asbe'in. 
 
 Sergei Alexandrovitch frowned. Then 
 Natalie entered the room ; he rose, went to 
 meet her, kissed and embraced her. It 
 seemed strange to her that she did not 
 feel as glad to see him as formerly, but 
 rather felt a kind of chill. Which of them 
 had changed, he or she ? 
 
 " What a surprise ! " said she, and felt 
 herself that her voice had a forced sound. 
 " It has not formerly been your custom to 
 appear so unexpectedly." 
 
 " My journey was only decided upon last 
 month," replied he, somewhat hesitatingly; 
 and with his dull smile he added, " I hope 
 I do not arrive inopportunely, Natalie?" 
 
 " How can you ask such a thing ! " said 
 she. " But sit down and put your hat 
 away you are at home." 
 
 He remarked the uneasiness of her man- 
 ner. He coughed twice, and then sat down 
 again near the table on which the basket of 
 roses stood. 
 
 Natalie sat down. Both hands resting 
 on the red surface of the mahogany table,
 
 Asbein. 75 
 
 she bent over the flowers, and slowly with 
 a kind of tenderness inhaled the dreamy, 
 melancholy perfume. 
 
 " Have you had a pleasant winter? " be- 
 gan Sergei Alexandrovitch. 
 
 " I do not know," replied she without 
 looking at him ; " I have forgotten, but the 
 spring was wonderfully beautiful, wonder- 
 fully beautiful," and she bent over the 
 flowers again. 
 
 " Hm ! So you prefer Rome to Naples? " 
 said he condescendingly. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You seem to have been very comforta- 
 bly fixed here," he remarked, with a glance 
 around. " You have very pretty rooms. 
 Those are beautiful roses which you have 
 there." 
 
 " Boris Lensky sent them to me," said 
 she, while she at the same time pulled a 
 rose from the basket to fasten it in the 
 bodice of her light foulard dress. Then she 
 sat down opposite Sergei. War was de- 
 clared.
 
 76 Asbe'in. 
 
 " Lensky seems to be a great deal with 
 you," said Assanow, condescendingly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I heard of it through acquaintances in 
 Petersburg," began the prince. " It did not 
 quite please me." 
 
 Natalie only shrugged her shoulders, with 
 an expression as if she would say : * I am 
 very sorry, but that does not change matters 
 at all." In spite of that she secretly trem- 
 bled before her brother. The announce- 
 ment which she had to make to him would 
 not cross her lips. 
 
 " It is hard to speak of certain things to 
 you," he continued, while he tried to make 
 his thin high voice sound confidential. He 
 did not wish to make his sister refractory 
 by overhasty roughness. " I have no pre- 
 judices." It had recently become the 
 fashion in his set, and especially for the 
 upper ten thousand, to boast of a kind of 
 harmless liberality. " No one can accuse 
 me of smallness. I am always in favor of 
 attracting young artists into society first,
 
 Asbein. 77 
 
 because they form an animating element in 
 our circles, and secondly, because one should 
 give them an opportunity to improve their 
 manners a little ; but all in moderation. 
 Too great intimacy in such cases is bad for 
 both parties. You are too much carried 
 away by the generosity of your heart. I 
 know that in reality your immoderate 
 kindness to Lensky does not mean much, 
 but 
 
 Her wonderfully beautiful eyes met 
 his. 
 
 " I am betrothed to Boris Nikolaivitch," 
 said she wearily but very distinctly. 
 
 " Betrothed ! " he burst out. " You to 
 Lensky ? You are crazy ! " 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " Does mother know of it?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " And she has given her consent ? " 
 
 " At first she was surprised ; she cried a 
 whole afternoon. I was very sorry to pain 
 her. Then she gave way. She is very fond 
 of him. Every one must be fond of him
 
 78 Asbetn. 
 
 who learns to know him well." Natalie's 
 eyes beamed with animation. 
 
 Sergei Alexandrovitch pulled at his mus- 
 tache. " Hm, hm," he murmured ; " we 
 will leave that undecided. As it happens, I 
 am one of those who know him well ; there 
 are few in our set who know him as inti- 
 mately as I, and hm I do not know that 
 he has caused me any very enthusiastic 
 feelings. As artist I rank him very high, 
 not so high as has been the fashion lately, 
 for as a beau dire il manque de style, he 
 lacks style ! But that has nothing to do 
 with this. But if he united in himself the 
 genius of Beethoven and Paganini, I would 
 still look upon the possibility of your alli- 
 ance with him as unheard of, and I tell you 
 frankly, that I shall do all that is in my 
 power to prevent it." He had taken up 
 again the hat which he had formerly laid 
 down, and held it on his knee as if paying 
 a call of state. While he spoke the last 
 words, he knocked on the top of it with 
 malicious decision.
 
 Asbein. 79 
 
 Natalie crossed her arms. 
 
 " I knew that you would oppose the mi- 
 salliance," said she, " but 
 
 He would not let her finish. " Mesalli- 
 ance ! " said he, and laughed very mocking- 
 ly, quite shortly and softly, to himself, and 
 began to drum on the top of his hat again. 
 " Mesalliance ! I cannot say that the mar- 
 riage of my sister to this Mr. Lensky would 
 be especially pleasant no, that I cannot 
 say. What must be my horror at your 
 undertaking if I scarcely think of my oppo- 
 sition on account of the unequal birth ! " 
 He was silent, but then as Natalie remained 
 obstinately silent, he continued: "That 
 you will in consequence change your social 
 position is your affair. But do not believe 
 that this will be all that you give up. You 
 sacrifice not only your position, your whole 
 personality, all your habits of life, but more 
 than all these, you sacrifice all your formerly 
 so spared and guarded womanly tender feel- 
 ing if you insist upon marrying this violinist. 
 Oh, I know what you will say," said he,
 
 8o ' Asbein. 
 
 while he noticed the glance which Natalie 
 gave the roses on the table. " He is full of 
 poetic attentions for you. When they are 
 in love, the roughest men speak in verse. 
 And I believe that he loves you. But his 
 enthusiasm for you is still only a passing 
 effervescence. What will remain when that 
 is gone ? I ask you, what would remain in 
 a man without principles, without a trace of 
 moral restraint, who has grown up amid 
 surroundings which have forever blunted 
 his feelings for things which would horrify 
 you, and others of which you have no sus- 
 picion ? " 
 
 Again he paused, but this time Natalie 
 spoke : " May I ask you," began she, with 
 the calm behind which irritation bordering 
 on uncontrollable anger concealed itself 
 " may I ask you to tell me exactly, without 
 any more finely veiled insinuations, what 
 you have against Boris Nikolaivitch, except 
 that he is of lower birth and has enjoyed 
 no careful bringing up ? " 
 
 " My God ! If it is a question of my sis-
 
 Asbein. 8 1 
 
 ter's future husband, that is enough and 
 more than enough ! " said Assanow. 
 
 " Is it all?" asked Natalie, and looked at 
 him penetratingly. 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " Is it all ? " she repeated, while she slowly 
 rose from her chair. " Have you anything 
 else against him ? " 
 
 " I have really nothing against him as 
 long as it is not a question of my sister's 
 husband," he hissed ; " but in that case 
 everything. And if instead of Lensky he 
 were called Prince Dolgorouki, I would still 
 say, as a husband for you he is impossible ! " 
 
 " Why I wish to know it why ? " 
 
 " Why ? Good. I will tell you, as far as 
 one can tell you because he is a wild an- 
 imal, with bursts of roughness of which you 
 cannot form the slightest conception," said 
 Assanow ; and, striking his thin hands to- 
 gether, he added, with evidently genuine 
 excitement : " Mais, ma pauvre fille, you 
 have no suspicion to what humiliations, 
 what degradations, you expose yourself." 
 
 6
 
 82 Asbe'in. 
 
 He stopped. He looked at his sister 
 triumphantly. She still stood before him 
 with her hand resting on the top of the 
 table, staring, pale and without a word. It 
 would be false, to say that his speech made 
 no impression on her. It had made an im- 
 pression on her. Still, she ascribed all that 
 he said to boundless, passionate opposition. 
 While he spoke it seemed to her as if little 
 pointed icicles were hurled in her face. 
 And weary and wounded from this hail- 
 storm of fruitless prudence, she longed with 
 all her heart for a reconciling delusion. 
 
 He misunderstood her apparently great 
 excitement, and in the firm conviction that 
 she already secretly began to fall in with 
 his opinion, he began, this time in a kindly, 
 playful tone : " My poor Natalie, my poor, 
 unwise but always charming sister, you are 
 like children who see that they are wrong 
 and are ashamed to acknowledge it. Well, 
 we will not press you too much. At first 
 it is always painful to be undeceived ; but 
 time cures everything, and when you are
 
 Asbe'in. 83 
 
 married to a distinguished and reasonable 
 young fellow un gar^on distingut et raison- 
 nable who will rationally cure you of your 
 romantic ideas, you will only think of this 
 youthful foolishness with a smile." 
 
 She threw back her head and measured 
 him from head to foot. At this moment 
 he seemed to her quite pitiable. How 
 poverty-stricken, how sad was his whole 
 inner life, his feelings, his thoughts, to those 
 to which she had recently accustomed her- 
 self ! " And you really believe that it could 
 occur to me to give up Boris Nikolaivitch ? " 
 said she slowly with proudly curved lips. 
 
 " I think, after what I have said to 
 you He tried to be patient, and 
 even wished to take her hand, but she 
 drew it back ; the touch of his cold, blood- 
 less fingers was unpleasant to her. Yet 
 it had never been so before. What had 
 changed in her? 
 
 The prince's face took on a hard, vexed 
 expression. " I think after what I have 
 told you " he repeated.
 
 84 Asbein. 
 
 " Is it not true, after what you have told 
 me, after the consolation you have offered 
 me, you cannot understand that I keep my 
 word ? " said she, challengingly. " What 
 will you, I am now so foolish ? " Her voice, 
 veiled at first, became warmer and stronger, 
 while she continued : " You take away 
 summer from me, and offer me winter as 
 consolation that is, you ask of me that 
 I should refuse everything in the world 
 that blooms and bears fruit, only because 
 sometimes a devastating thunderstorm 
 bursts over this wealth of beauty and life ! 
 I know that in a normal winter there are no 
 thunderstorms, and in spite of that I prefer 
 the summer! " 
 
 " But it is a tropical summer ! " exclaimed 
 Assanow. 
 
 " That may be," she replied, calmly ; 
 " but for that very reason it is more mag- 
 nificent yes, even because of the dangers 
 involved in it more magnificent than any 
 other." 
 
 He stood up. " It is useless to speak to
 
 Asbe'in. 85 
 
 you," said he, coldly ; " the only thing that 
 remains for me is to speak to Lensky. He 
 has a clear head in spite of all his genius. 
 He can be talked over." 
 
 Then Natalie was startled out of her 
 proud calm. " You would be indelicate 
 enough to say to him what you have said 
 to me ! " she burst out. 
 
 " In such cases it is not only wisest, 
 but most humane, to use pure prudence in- 
 stead of foolish sentimentality," announced 
 Assanow ; and, bowing to his sister as to a 
 stranger, he left, with all his vexation, still 
 elevated by the thought that he had again 
 had opportunity to display his " prudence " 
 in a brilliant light. He loved his prudence 
 as an artistic capability, and was glad to 
 give proofs, by all kinds of virtuoso perform- 
 ances, of its extent and unusual pliability. 
 Whether these productions were exactly 
 suited to the time troubled the virtuoso 
 little, and that by his last threat he had 
 attained exactly the opposite with Natalie 
 from what he wished, did not occur to him 
 at all, momentarily.
 
 86 Asbein. 
 
 He had gone. Natalie still stood in the 
 middle of the room, her hand resting on 
 the table, and trembling in her whole body. 
 Suddenly the memory of the " musical con- 
 fession " arose in her, which Lensky had 
 laid before her the morning when he tried 
 the Amati, the confession which had fright- 
 ened her. And through her mind vibrated, 
 piercingly and cuttingly, the mysterious 
 succession of tones from the Arabian folk- 
 songs which echoed lamentingly through 
 all his compositions the devil's music : 
 Asbein. 
 
 As long as she had to defend herself from 
 her brother, she had not realized how 
 deeply he had wounded her. She felt at 
 once miserable, wounded, and discontented 
 with life as a young tree must feel, over 
 whose fragrant young spring blossoms a hail- 
 storm has passed. Then Lensky came in. 
 He perceived in a moment what had hap- 
 pened.. 
 
 " They have tormented you on my ac- 
 count," said he. "Poor heart! if I could
 
 Asbein. 87 
 
 only take all this vexation upon my- 
 self." 
 
 She smiled at him. " Then I would not 
 be worthy of you," replied she. 
 
 He drew her gently toward him. Her 
 discouragement had disappeared ; warm, 
 strong life again pulsated in her veins. 
 
 " Everything has its recompense," whis- 
 pered she ; " it is sweet to bear something 
 for any one whom " 
 
 " Well, for any one whom please finish," 
 he urged, and drew her closer to him. 
 
 " You know it without." 
 
 " I would so love to hear you say it once." 
 
 She raised herself on tiptoes and whis- 
 pered something in his ear. 
 
 He held her tighter and tighter to him. 
 " Oh, my happiness, my queen ! " he mur- 
 mured, and his warm lips met hers. 
 
 She felt as if wrapped in a sunbeam, in a 
 warm, animating atmosphere, through which 
 none of the critical sneers and opinions of 
 those who stood without the consecrated 
 magic circle of love could penetrate.
 
 88 Asbe'in. 
 
 Six weeks later Natalie and Lensky were 
 married, and at the Russian Embassy in 
 Vienna. Her dowry consisted of a very 
 incomplete trousseau, in part lavishly 
 trimmed with lace ; of a mortgaged estate in 
 South Russia that had brought in no rents for 
 three years ; and of three Cremona violins. 
 
 While her elder brother silently concealed 
 the true despair which the marriage caused 
 him behind stiff dignity, the younger, an 
 officer of the guard, with a becoming talent 
 for arrogant impertinences, pleased himself 
 by jesting over this adventurous marriage, 
 and describing the " strange taste " of his 
 sister, with a shrug of the shoulders, as a 
 case of acute monomania. When he spoke 
 of his brother-in-law, he called him nothing 
 but " cette b$te sauvage et incticrottable" 
 even when he had long made a practice of 
 borrowing money of him. 
 
 Neither of Natalie's brothers or her mar- 
 ried sister appeared at her wedding. Only 
 the old princess accompanied her daughter 
 to the altar.
 
 SECOND BOOK. 
 
 THEY trifled away the summer on the 
 Italian coast and in Switzerland. In the 
 autumn Lensky made a concert tour 
 through Germany and the Netherlands, on 
 which his young wife accompanied him, 
 and attempted with humorous zeal to ac- 
 custom herself to the role of an artist's wife. 
 In the beginning of December Lensky and 
 she came to St. Petersburg. The residence 
 had been prepared for the young pair by a 
 friend of Natalie. Natalie made a discon- 
 tented face when she entered her new king- 
 dom. How new, how glaring, how unsuita- 
 ble and tasteless everything looked. " It is 
 as if one bit into a green apple," said she ; 
 and turning to Lensky she added, gayly, 
 with a shrug of her shoulders : " The stupid 
 Annette did not know any better ; but do
 
 cp Asbe'in. 
 
 not trouble yourself. In a couple of weeks 
 it will be different. You shall see how com- 
 fortably I will cushion your nest. You 
 must feel happy in it, my restless eagle, or 
 else you will fly away from me. What ? " 
 
 She said this, smiling in proud conscious- 
 ness of his passionate love. What pleasure 
 would it give him to fly away ? And teas- 
 ingly, jestingly, she pushed back the thick 
 hair from his temples. 
 
 Ah, how pleasant and yet tantalizing was 
 the touch of her slender, delicate fingers, 
 which made him at once nervous and 
 happy ! As he expressed it, it " almost 
 made him jump out of his skin with rapt- 
 ure." At first he let her continue her 
 foolish, tender playfulness to her heart's 
 content ; then he laughingly put himself 
 on the defensive, preached a more digni- 
 fied manner to her, and when she did 
 not yield, but gayly continued her lovely, 
 teasing ways, he at length seized her vio- 
 lently by both wrists and quite crushed her 
 hands with kisses.
 
 Asbe'in. 91 
 
 If in the first weeks of their married life 
 both had been quite solemn, thoughtful, 
 and confused in their manner to each other, 
 now they often frolicked together like two 
 gay children. 
 
 While he took up again his long-inter- 
 rupted duties at the Petersburg Conserva- 
 tory, she built him " his nest." She did 
 not go lavishly to work. Oh, no ! She 
 knew that one must not press down a 
 young artist with the burden of material 
 cares. She imagined she was very econom- 
 ical. She did not cease to wonder over the 
 cheapness with which she could get every- 
 thing that was needed, beginning with the 
 flowers flowers in winter, in St. Peters- 
 burg! He never enlightened her as to 
 how much the footing on which she main- 
 tained her " simple household " surpassed 
 his present circumstances. 
 
 Every time that he came home he found 
 a new, attractive change. She accomplished 
 great things in artistic arrangement of the 
 so-called " confused style," which at that
 
 92 Asbe'in. 
 
 time was not so common as to-day, but was 
 still a bold innovation. 
 
 "C'est tres joli, mats un pen trop touffu" 
 said he to her once when she met him, quite 
 particularly conscious of victory and await- 
 ing praise, with the knowledge of a new, 
 costly improvement in the arrangement of 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 " Yes, my love ; but a drawing-room is 
 neither an official audience-room nor a gym- 
 nasium," replied she, somewhat offended. 
 
 " Nor a ball-room nor riding-school," com- 
 pleted he, jestingly ; " but h'm still one 
 should be able to move in it. Do you not 
 think so?" 
 
 " That is as one looks at it. I have noth- 
 ing to do with it if you cannot brandish 
 around too freely in it." 
 
 They went out in society quite frequently 
 in Natalie's society. That many people, 
 especially Natalie's near relations, made 
 comments on the marriage of the spoiled 
 child of a prince with a violinist is easily
 
 Asbetn. 93 
 
 understood. But scarcely had they seen 
 Boris and his young wife together a few 
 times when the comments ceased. A full, 
 true, young human happiness always causes 
 respect, and, like every achievement, bears 
 its triumphant justification in itself. The 
 leader of fashion, Princess Lydia Petrovna 
 B., declared publicly, and, indeed, in the 
 highest court circles, that in her opinion 
 Natalie had acted very wisely. 
 
 Countess Sophie Dimitrievna went a step 
 further when she energetically declared that 
 she envied Natalie. From that time every 
 one vied in feting the young couple and dis- 
 tinguishing them. 
 
 They both enjoyed society, but the best 
 part of it was not entering the brilliantly 
 illuminated reception-rooms or being sur- 
 rounded by wondering strangers. Oh, no ! 
 the best of all was the last quarter of an 
 hour before they left their home, when 
 Lensky, already in evening dress, entered 
 the dressing-room of his young wife. Each 
 time he felt anew the same pleasant excite-
 
 94 Asbein. 
 
 ment when he, slowly turning the knob, 
 after a teasing, " May I come in, Natalie ? " 
 entered the cosey room. How charming and 
 attractive everything was there ! The room 
 with the light carpet and the comfortable, 
 not too numerous articles of cretonne-up- 
 holstered furniture ; the two tiny gold-em- 
 broidered slippers on the rough bear-skin in 
 front of the lounge ; not far off, Natalie's 
 house-dress, thrown over a chair, exhaling 
 the warmth of her young, fresh, fragrant 
 personality. Then there on the toilet-table, 
 with clouds of white muslin over the pink 
 lining, and with sparkling silver and crystal 
 utensils, a pretty confusion of half-opened 
 white lace boxes, and on the table dark 
 velvet jewel-cases. The pleasant, mild, and 
 still bright light of many pink wax-candles, 
 which stood about in high, heavy silver 
 candelabra, and the warm, strange, seduc- 
 tive atmosphere which filled the whole 
 room an atmosphere which was permeated 
 with the fragrance of greenhouse flowers, 
 burning wax-candles, and the pleasant,
 
 Asbem. 95 
 
 subtle, spicy Indian perfume which clung 
 to all Natalie's effects. 
 
 And there, before the tall cheval-glass, 
 Natalie, already in evening toilet, almost 
 ready, her beautiful arms hanging down in 
 pampered helplessness ; behind her a maid, 
 just finished fastening her corsage, and a 
 second, with a three-branched candelabra 
 in her hand, throwing the light upon her 
 mistress. 
 
 Was that really his wife ? This splendid, 
 queenly being in the white silk dress she 
 wore white silk in preference really the 
 wife of the violinist, in whose life, not so 
 far back, lay all kind of need, humiliation, 
 trouble of all kind ? 
 
 Then she looked around. She had a 
 charming manner of holding her small hands 
 half against her cheeks, half against her 
 neck, and turning slowly from the glass 
 and looking at him with lowered eyelids, 
 and a kind of mischievously proud and yet 
 tenderly suppressed consciousness of vic- 
 tory. " Are you satisfied, Boris ? "
 
 g6 Asbe'tn. 
 
 What could he answer? 
 
 "You come just as if called," then said 
 she. " You shall put the hair-pins in my 
 hair. Katia is so awkward." Then she sat 
 down in a low chair, and handed him the 
 hair-pins. They were wonderful hair-pins, 
 the heads of which were narcissi formed of 
 diamonds, a bridal present from Lensky. 
 He took them with gentle fingers, and the 
 celebrated artist was proud if his young 
 wife praised him for the taste with which 
 he fastened her diamonds in her hair. 
 
 " Natalie ! " exclaimed Boris, in a tone of 
 the greatest surprise a surprise made up 
 of the greatest astonishment and not of 
 joy " you here ? " 
 
 It was in his study, and nine o'clock in 
 the morning. At this hour, daily, in crying 
 opposition to his former proverbial unreli- 
 ability, he had long been sitting at his 
 writing-table. But that Natalie should leave 
 her bedroom before ten o'clock had hitherto 
 been an unheard-of occurrence.
 
 Asbein. 97 
 
 But to-day, just as he was about to go 
 to the piano, to try on that modest repre- 
 sentative of an orchestra a completed musi- 
 cal phrase, he discovered her. Quite unob- 
 served, she had mischievously crept in, 
 and now crouched comfortably in a large 
 arm-chair, which formed a very picturesque 
 frame for her silk wrapper, bordered with 
 black fur. She sat on one foot ; one tiny 
 gold-embroidered Caucasian slipper lay 
 before her on the floor, and she smiled 
 tenderly at her husband with her great, 
 proud eyes. But the pride disappeared from 
 her glance at his ejaculation, an ejaculation 
 which expressed so much perplexity, so 
 little joy. She started and, embarrassed, 
 reached out for her slipper with the tip of 
 her foot. 
 
 " Do I disturb you ? " she asked, anx- 
 iously. " Must I go?" 
 
 Formerly he could not bear to have any 
 one about him when he worked. His face 
 wore a forced, smiling expression, while he 
 assured her : 
 7
 
 98 Asbe'in. 
 
 " Oh, not in the slightest pray sit down." 
 Whereupon he pushed his chair up to hers. 
 
 " Oh, if you are going to treat me so ! " 
 said she. 
 
 " How, then ? " asked he. 
 
 " Like like any visitor," she burst out, 
 and hastened to the door. He brought her 
 back. Then he saw that her eyes were full 
 of tears. 
 
 " But what is the matter ? " 
 . " I am ashamed of my intrusion, that is 
 all. Adieu I will not disturb you fur- 
 ther! " 
 
 With that she wished to free herself from 
 him. But that was not so easy. He took 
 her, struggling in his arms like a child, and 
 carried her back by force to the immense 
 chair which they had left. " So now, sit 
 there, and don't spoil my mood, you witch. 
 Why should I not enjoy your company for 
 a little? Do you think, then, that I am not 
 glad to see you ? But you do not expect 
 that I should bend over the table, and spoil 
 paper, while a charming little woman sits
 
 Asbein. 99 
 
 behind me ? The temptation to talk to you 
 is too great." 
 
 She shook her head. " You wish to be 
 good to me, but you pain me," murmured 
 she. And she added, flatteringly, " Can you 
 really not work when I am with you ? " 
 
 " Would you like it if I could ? " he asked, 
 and looked at her with a quite new, pene- 
 trating expression in his eyes. 
 
 He drew his brows together humorously ; 
 he was now kneeling before her, and held 
 both her hands in his. " You are not only a 
 charming little woman, Natalie," said he, 
 " but, what very few such beautiful and 
 seductive women are, of a good heart. But 
 still I have noticed one thing in you, namely, 
 that you do not like to be second anywhere. 
 And, do you see, everywhere else you are 
 not only the first, but the only one in the 
 world for me ; but here, Natalie, here it 
 must please you that I should forget you 
 for my art ! " 
 
 " And do you think that I would wish 
 it otherwise ? " said she, and there was an
 
 ioo Asbein. 
 
 earnest, solemn expression in her eyes 
 which he never forgot. " Oh, you blind 
 one, you do not yet know me at all. Do 
 not kneel there like a hero in a romance; 
 in the long run, it looks not only awkward 
 but uncomfortable. Sit down by me there 
 is room enough in this immense chair for 
 us both. So ! and now now I will con- 
 fess to you what I have already so long 
 had on my heart. Do you see, you love 
 me, I do not doubt that, how should I ? 
 but do not be angry with me sometimes 
 I wish that you loved me differently ; I 
 wish to be not only your petted wife, your 
 plaything " 
 
 " My plaything ! " he interrupted her, very 
 reproachfully. " Oh, Natalie ! my sanctu- 
 ary !" 
 
 " Well, then, as far as I am concerned, 
 your sanctuary. That, looked at in one 
 light, is also only a plaything, even if of 
 the most distinguished kind." She laughed 
 somewhat constrainedly. " It is certainly 
 immoderate," she continued, and hesitated
 
 Asbein, 101 
 
 a little, " horribly immoderate, but still it 
 is so I I do not want to be only your 
 plaything, but also your friend do not be 
 horrified at this audacity yes, your friend, 
 your confidante. I wish to be the first to 
 share your newly arising thoughts. Lately, 
 it has often hurt me that you busy yourself 
 so much with all kinds of trifles only to give 
 me pleasure. I know it is my fault ; at first 
 I was afraid of your genius, which soared 
 heavenward, and wished to accustom you 
 to the earth, and chain you close to me. 
 But then then I was ashamed of my small- 
 ness ah, so ashamed. You shall not stoop 
 down to me ; let me try to rise to you. 
 Spread out your mighty wings, and fly up 
 to the stars, but take me with you ! " 
 
 He could not speak only kisses burned 
 on his lips. He pressed them on her 
 wonderful eyes, whose holy light humili- 
 ated him. Then, after a while, he mur- 
 mured, softly : " You are nearer the stars 
 than I, Natalie. Show me the way, show 
 me the way ! "
 
 IO2 Asbein. 
 
 From then, she daily passed a couple of 
 hours in his study. How happy she felt in 
 the great, airy room, which was almost as 
 empty as a shed. In here she had not vent- 
 ured with her soft, seductive, decorative arts. 
 All had remained as sober and plain as he 
 had always been accustomed to have his sur- 
 roundings while at work. High shelves al- 
 most breaking under their weight of music, 
 a piano, a couple of stringed instruments, 
 the arm-chair in which he had established 
 her, and two or three cane-bottomed chairs 
 constituted the whole furniture. On the 
 writing-table stood a picture of Natalie, 
 painted in water-colors by a young French 
 artist in Rome. The room could show no 
 other ornament. Still, there in the dark- 
 est corner hung a single laurel-wreath. No 
 large one, such as one lays to-day at the feet 
 of great artists, but poor and small, and in 
 the middle of the wreath, in a common 
 wooden frame, drawn with a hard lead-pen- 
 cil, the face of a woman, with a white cloth 
 on her head, from beneath which fine, curly
 
 Asbe'in. 103 
 
 hair fell over the forehead. Without being 
 beautiful, the face was strangely attractive, 
 and Natalie would have liked to ask the 
 history of the laurel-wreath and the pict- 
 ure. But she did not venture to. She 
 never, by a single question, touched upon 
 Lensky's past. 
 
 He only continued to remain in solitude 
 during the hours which he devoted to tech- 
 nical practice. At other times he quietly 
 let her stay. She sat behind him, quite 
 soberly and still, in the large, worn-out 
 patriarchal chair, and did not breathe a 
 word. She never even took a book in her 
 hand, for fear of irritating him by the rat- 
 tling of turning pages, but busied herself 
 with pretty, noiseless handiwork. 
 
 The feeling of her presence was unend- 
 ingly sweet to him. His whole activity 
 was increased ; he worked more intently 
 than formerly. A fulness of music vibrated 
 in his head and heart. And if the inward 
 vibrations became too dreamily sweet, too 
 luxuriant and exuberant, he stopped writ-
 
 IO4 Asbein. 
 
 ing, sat awhile in silence, and then, without 
 taking the slightest notice of Natalie, walked 
 up and down a couple of times, hummed 
 something to himself, made a sweeping gest- 
 ure, in conclusion took up the violin 
 then 
 
 Natalie raised her head and listened 
 how wonderful that sounded ! He had un- 
 learned the madness, but still in his mel- 
 odies always sounded the strange Arabian 
 succession of tones, the devil's music : 
 Asbein ! 
 
 She became, as she had wished, the con- 
 fidante of his work. When he had sketched 
 on paper the plan of a composition, he 
 played it to. her, now on his violin, which 
 he passionately loved, now on the piano, 
 which he did not love ; for its short tone, 
 incapable of development, repulsed him, 
 but which he respected and made use of 
 as the most complete of all instruments. 
 Although he played the piano, not with 
 virtuosity, but with the helplessness of the 
 composer, he could still bring out some-
 
 Asbein. 105 
 
 thing of the " warm tone " which made his 
 violin irresistible. 
 
 How eagerly she listened to his composi- 
 tions ! How much she rejoiced in them, 
 and how severe she was to him ! She would 
 not let him pass over a single musical flaw. 
 That she rejoiced and wept over the beau- 
 ties in his compositions, that she boldly 
 placed his genius near Beethoven and Schu- 
 mann, that is to say, near what she ranked 
 highest in the world, that was another 
 thing ! For that reason she was so severe. 
 He laughed at her sometimes for her tender 
 delusion. Then she took his head between 
 her hands, and said, triumphantly : " That 
 is all very well ; only wait a little while, 
 then the whole world will say that you have 
 been the last musical poet : the others are 
 only bunglers." 
 
 In the beginning of March he made a 
 short artist tour through the interior of 
 Russia. Naturally, he could not drag her 
 around with him, for she could not endure
 
 io6 Asbe'tn. 
 
 the exhausting fatigues of his quick jour- 
 neys, especially at that time. But how hor- 
 rible, how unbearable the parting seemed to 
 him ! He wrote her every day. His writ- 
 ing was ugly and irregular, his orthography 
 as deficient in French as in Russian ; but 
 what tenderness, what passion and poetry 
 spoke from every uncultured, stormily writ- 
 ten line. No one could better impress his 
 whole heart in a short, insignificant letter 
 than he ; and what rapture, what wild, al- 
 most painful rapture at seeing her again ! 
 She had missed him much less than he 
 had missed her. He reproached her for it, 
 complained that the new love which now 
 began to fill her whole existence left no 
 place for the old. But then she measured 
 him with such a tender, and, at the same 
 time, a so deeply hurt look, that he was 
 ashamed. 
 
 " You must not take it so," he whispered 
 to her, appeasingly. " It is an old story 
 that if two hearts hasten forward together 
 in a race of love, one will naturally outdo
 
 Asbe'in. 107 
 
 the other, and still will be vexed that it is 
 so. But it is quite natural and in order 
 that I should cling more to you than you to 
 me." 
 
 She smiled quite sadly. " We will see 
 who will win the race in the end," murmured 
 she. 
 
 Natalie no longer went into society. Her 
 health was much impaired. She passed the 
 entire month of April stretched on her 
 lounge, in loose wrappers. She now re- 
 proached herself with having been foolish 
 not to have spared herself before. The time 
 of tormenting fancy approached for the 
 young wife, the time of concealed anxiety 
 for them both. In spite of the consoling 
 assurances of the physician, Lensky was no 
 longer himself, from anxiety and despair. 
 But he did not let her notice it. When he 
 was with her he had always a gay smile on 
 his lips and a droll story for her diversion. 
 He cared for her like a mother. 
 
 Then, toward the end of May, came the
 
 io8 Asbe'in. 
 
 most tormenting hour he had ever lived 
 through, until at last when he already 
 believed that all hope was lost a little, 
 thin, shrill sound smote his ear. It startled 
 him, his heart beat loudly ; still he did not 
 venture to move, but listened, until at last 
 the doctor came out of the adjoining room, 
 and called to him : " All is over." 
 
 He misunderstood the words. " She is 
 dead ! " he gasped. 
 
 " No, no ! Boris Nikolaivitch ; everything 
 is as well as possible. Come ! " 
 
 He felt as would a man buried alive, if 
 one should raise the lid from his coffin. 
 
 At the door of the bedroom a fat old 
 woman, with a large cap, came toward him. 
 " A son, a very fine young one ! " said she, 
 triumphantly, while she laid something tiny 
 and rosy, wrapped in white cloth and lace, 
 in his arms. 
 
 Tears fell from his eyes, and his hands 
 trembled so that the nurse was horrified 
 and took the child away from him. 
 
 He went up to Natalie, who, deathly pale
 
 Asbein. 109 
 
 and exhausted, but with a lovely, indescrib- 
 able expression on her face, at once of ten- 
 derness and of a certain solemn pride, lay 
 among the high-piled pillows. Quite softly, 
 with a kind of timidity which his violent 
 love had hitherto never known, he pressed 
 her pale hand to his lips. 
 
 "Are you content?" she whispered, 
 dreamily and scarcely audibly. " Are you 
 content ? " 
 
 She recovered rapidly. Her beauty had 
 lost none of its charm, but had rather won 
 an earnest one might almost say consecrat- 
 ed loveliness. 
 
 Her face reflected her happiness. That 
 also had become a shade deeper, nobler. In 
 spite of all her pampered habits, she insisted 
 upon caring for the child herself. He let 
 her have her way. 
 
 The former dressing-room was changed to 
 a nursery. Sometimes, in the long, trans- 
 parent twilight of the spring, he entered the 
 room in which, in winter, he had passed so
 
 1 10 Asbein. 
 
 many charming hours by candle-light, and 
 where now everything was so changed. A 
 cradle stood in the place which formerly 
 the toilet-table had occupied ah, what a 
 cradle a dream of a cradle ! A basket with 
 a canopy of green silk, hung with a long, 
 transparent lace veil, a costly nest for a 
 young bird whose little eyes must be 
 shielded, by all kinds of tender devices, from 
 the bright light, which perhaps later would 
 pain him so ! 
 
 The air, quite filled with a pleasant, mild, 
 damp vapor, was permeated by a weak 
 perfume of iris and warming linen, and, 
 besides that, with something quite strange, 
 quite peculiarly sweet, stirring the breath 
 of a healthy, fresh, carefully cared-for little 
 child. 
 
 And there, where the cheval-glass had 
 formerly reflected to him the lovely form 
 of a proud queen of beauty, now sat in 
 the same large arm-chair, a tender young 
 mother, her child on her breast. The lines 
 of her neck, from which the loose, white
 
 Asbein. 1 1 1 
 
 dress had slipped down a little so that the 
 outline of the shoulders was visible, was 
 charming ; but what was it, to the lovely, 
 attentive expression with which she looked 
 down at the child ? 
 
 Everything about her expressed tender- 
 ness : her look, her smile, the hands with 
 which she held the child to her. It was 
 just these small, white hands which Lensky 
 could not cease to observe. How helpless 
 they had formerly been and now ! She 
 would scarcely let the nurse touch baby. 
 He was never weary of watching how un- 
 tiringly she touched the tiny, frail body of 
 the infant, and did a thousand services for 
 it which all resembled caresses. 
 
 " It is all very beautiful, but you have a 
 manner of ignoring me in this little king- 
 dom," said Lensky, jokingly, to the young 
 mother, while he threw a look of humorous 
 vexation at the young despot whom she 
 just laid in the cradle. 
 
 She bent her head a little to one side,
 
 H2 Asbein. 
 
 and whispered roguishly, while she came 
 up to him and played with the lapel of his 
 coat : " Do you see, Boris, this is my study. 
 Everywhere else you are not only the first 
 but the only one in the world for me ; but 
 here you must be content if I sometimes 
 forget you for my calling." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Do you know that you once said some- 
 thing similar to me ; that time when I, for 
 the first time, dared to enter your sanctu- 
 ary?" she murmured, and repeated petu- 
 lantly : " Do you know it ? " 
 
 He kissed both of her hands, one after 
 the other. " Do you then believe that I 
 could ever forget such a thing, my angel ? " 
 whispered he. " I am no such spendthrift ; 
 oh, no ! If you knew how I cherish this 
 dear remembrance ! That is pure happi- 
 ness which we will keep for our old days, 
 when the sun no longer seems to us to 
 shine as brightly, and we must light a poor 
 candle in order to find our path again to a 
 suitable grave."
 
 Asbem. 113 
 
 Natalie still thought of the poor laurel 
 wreath in his study. But she did not ven- 
 ture to ask him a direct question about it. 
 
 He himself, of his own accord, at last 
 told her the history of the pitiful relic. 
 
 He had never spoken to her of his child- 
 hood, but once a great impulse came over 
 him to tell her the whole ; to lay bare be- 
 fore her all the pitiableness of his past. 
 What would she then say to it ? 
 
 It was a clear summer night, out on the 
 terrace of the country house near St. 
 Petersburg, which they had hired for the 
 summer, the terrace which looked out on 
 the small but pretty and shady garden. 
 They sat there, hand in hand ; around 
 them the dull, gray light of a day that will 
 not die, sweet perfume of flowers, and in 
 the tree tops the gentle rustling of the kiss- 
 ing leaves. She talked of gay, insignificant 
 things ; gave him a droll, laughing descrip- 
 tion of a visit to one of her friends. At 
 first it amused him ; then something, he 
 could not have said what, irritated him
 
 114 Asbein. 
 
 against this monstrous principle of gliding 
 so triflingly and mockingly through life 
 without ever glancing into it more deeply. 
 
 "What would she say if she knew?" 
 thought he. " Perhaps she would shun 
 me ! " A kind of madness overcame him. 
 He felt the wish to risk his happiness in 
 order to convince himself of its durability, 
 to put his petted wife to the test. " How 
 you butterflies, floating over flowers in the 
 sunshine, must be horrified at the miser- 
 able worms who creep over the earth ! " he 
 began bitterly. 
 
 " What are you thinking of ? " asked she, 
 astonished. 
 
 " Nothing especial, only that I was origi- 
 nally just such a worm, creeping over the 
 earth." 
 
 " Ah ! that is long past ! " she inter- 
 rupted him hastily. She wished to keep 
 him from long dwelling on an unpleasant 
 thought, but he suspected that his insinua- 
 tion of his humble antecedents vexed her, 
 and that she felt the need of forgetting his
 
 Asbc'in. \ \ 5 
 
 derivation. He looked at her from head 
 to foot, with an angry, wondering glance. 
 Her richly embroidered white dress, the 
 large diamonds in her ears, how the dia- 
 monds sparkled in the dull evening light! 
 
 Then he began to speak of his child- 
 hood, dryly, with a smile on his lips as if it 
 was a question of something quite indiffer- 
 ent and amusing. 
 
 In a large tenement at Moscow, over- 
 crowded with all kinds of human vermin, 
 had he grown up ; in the half of a room 
 that was divided by a sail, behind which 
 another poor family hungered. His father 
 he did not remember. His mother sang to 
 the guitar in wine rooms. When he was 
 five years old she had bought him a fiddle 
 for four rubles, and then some one, a disso- 
 lute musician, who often came to them, 
 had taught him to scrape on it a little. 
 From that time he accompanied his mother 
 when she sang in the wine rooms, or even 
 on the streets, as it happened. 
 
 She had been pretty ; the drawing which
 
 Ii6 Asbe'in. 
 
 hung in the laurel wreath, and which an 
 artist in their horrible dwelling-place had 
 made of her, was like her. Only she had 
 quite unusually beautiful teeth which one 
 could not see in the picture. He remem- 
 bered these teeth very well, because she 
 laughed so much, especially if there was 
 little to eat and she made him take it all, 
 and declared she had spoiled her appetite 
 at a friend's house with fresh pirogj. Once 
 the thought had occurred to him that she 
 only said so because there was not enough 
 for two, and then he could not eat any- 
 thing more. If there was nothing at all to 
 eat, either for him or for her, she told him 
 a story. 
 
 Had he loved her ? Yes, he believed so 
 how could it be otherwise ? But the con- 
 sciousness of what she really had been to 
 him only came to him when he was no 
 longer with her. How that happened he 
 really did not know, but one fine day she 
 took him in a part of the city which he had 
 never known until then, in a handsome
 
 Asbein. 117 
 
 residence that seemed so beautiful to him 
 that he only ventured to go around on tip- 
 toes. At the door a fat, yellow man, with 
 long, greasy, black hair, received him, and 
 told his mother it was all right. Then she 
 kissed him a last time, told him she would 
 take him away in an hour, and went. 
 
 He was taken in a room with gay furni- 
 ture, and there greeted by a fat woman 
 with a thick gold chain over the bosom of 
 her violet silk dress, and with rings on all 
 her short, stumpy, wrinkled fingers, and 
 was entertained with tea, cake, and honey. 
 He had never before enjoyed a similar re- 
 past. He felt in an elevated frame of mind. 
 
 When the fat man he was a mediocre 
 musician who had married a rich merchant's 
 daughter, who gave him none of her money, 
 however told him that he should always 
 stay with him, and never go back to his 
 mother, he was glad, and felt the conscious- 
 ness of having taken a step forward in the 
 world. 
 
 Did that surprise Natalie? He could
 
 ii8 Asbe'in. 
 
 not help it, it was still so. " Strange what 
 roughness men show before a little bit of 
 civilization has taught them to conceal it," 
 he added reflectively. 
 
 Did he not feel anxiety later ? Natalie 
 wished to know. Yes, for his new life con- 
 tained nothing of that which he had prom- 
 ised himself. That he should live in the 
 beautiful rooms with the master and mis- 
 tress and eat with them, as he had thought 
 at first, had been an illusion. Only the two 
 children of the fat daughter of the mer- 
 chant could tumble around on the sofas, 
 with their fiery-red, woolen, damask cover- 
 ing, and could help themselves from all the 
 dishes. 
 
 He lived on charity ; they told him that 
 every day. The musician had bought him 
 of his mother for fifty rubles, as Lensky 
 afterward learned, as a speculation, in 
 order to make money out of him as a prod- 
 igy. The time which he did not devote 
 to his musical practice he must spend help- 
 ing the maid in the kitchen.
 
 Asbe'in. 119 
 
 He slept, with an old sofa pillow under 
 his head, on the floor, in a gloomy little 
 room, without window, only with dirty 
 panes of glass in the door a room in which 
 the cook put all kinds of rubbish. Damp- 
 ness ran down the walls, and every even- 
 ing from all corners crept out a whole 
 regiment of black beetles, and spread them- 
 selves over the boards. The food ? Well, 
 it was sparing. Sometimes he only re- 
 ceived what the family had left on their 
 plates. 
 
 Was he not angry at this treatment? 
 No. He found it quite in order at that 
 time. The well-fed, warmly dressed people 
 impressed him, especially the cap of Vau- 
 vara Ivanovna that was the name of his 
 mistress. He felt a respectful shudder pass 
 over him every time he saw this structure 
 of blonde, red flowers, and green ribbon. 
 Except the Kremlin, nothing impressed 
 him so much as this house. 
 
 When the whole family, in festival attire, 
 went to church on Sunday, he stood at the
 
 I2O Asbe'in. 
 
 door, quite oppressed by the feeling of 
 modest wonder, and looked after the well- 
 dressed, well-fed people. He did his best 
 to make himself useful and agreeable, and 
 to please them. Yes, he was just so small 
 and pitiable, as a half-starved six-year-old 
 pigmy. And then, in conclusion, one day 
 he simply could bear it no longer and ran 
 back to his mother. He found the way. 
 With that quite Animal sense of locality 
 and traces, which only children of the 
 lowest classes of men have, he found it. 
 His mother was at home ; she was fright- 
 ened when she saw him. Had they turned 
 him out? Yes, she was frightened. In the 
 first moment she was frightened ; then 
 here Lensky stammered in his confession 
 naturally she was glad ; for, what use of 
 losing words ? naturally she was glad. 
 How she kissed him and caressed him with 
 her poor, rough, toil-worn, and still such 
 gentle, warm hands. He still felt her 
 hands sometimes on him, in dreams, espe- 
 cially behind his ears and on his neck.
 
 As be in. 121 
 
 Then she fed him. She spread a red and 
 white flowered cloth over the table in his 
 honor, and after that she gave^him a holy 
 picture. Then she said it could not be 
 otherwise; he must go back to Simon 
 Ephremitsch ; it was for his own good. 
 When he had become a great artist, then 
 he would come to fetch her in a coach with 
 four horses. 
 
 That impressed him. And in order to 
 calm him completely, she promised to visit 
 him very soon. 
 
 But she did not come ; and when he ran 
 back to her, after about a month, she was 
 no longer in her old abode ; he never found 
 her! Soon afterward she sent him two 
 pretty little shirts, delicately embroidered 
 in red and blue. But she herself did not 
 come. Never! 
 
 At his first appearance in public he had 
 performed his piece with the anxious assi- 
 duity of a little monkey that fears a blow, 
 he asserted to his great astonishment, he 
 was applauded. In the midst of the hand-
 
 122 Asbe'in. 
 
 clapping he suddenly heard a sob. He was 
 convinced that his mother had been at the 
 concert. 
 
 At the conclusion they handed him a 
 laurel wreath, the same which now hung in 
 his room ; quite a poor woman had brought 
 it, they said. He guessed immediately 
 that the wreath came from his mother; 
 and suddenly, just as a couple of music- 
 lovers had stepped on the stage, in order to 
 see the wonderful little animal near by, he 
 began to stamp his feet and clench his fists, 
 to scream and to sob, until every one crowd- 
 ed around him. His principal threatened 
 him with blows ; a very pretty young lady 
 in a blue-silk dress took him on her lap to 
 quiet him ; but alt was of no use. 
 
 He saw his mother once more in her 
 coffin. 
 
 His benefactor told him that she was 
 dead, and that, after all, it was suitable 
 that he should show her the last honors. 
 The coffin stood on a table, surrounded by 
 thin, poorly-burning candles, and she lay
 
 Asbeln. 123 
 
 within, so small and thin, her hands folded 
 on her breast, in a poor shroud, that they 
 had bought ready made for a few co- 
 pecks. 
 
 In the beginning, Natalie had interrupted 
 him with questions, but now she had long 
 been silent. He looked at her challenging- 
 ly, at every pitiful, repulsive detail, espe- 
 cially if it brought forward a trace of his 
 own insignificance. It was quite as if he 
 expressly tried to pain her. But when he 
 came to speak of the death of his mother, 
 whose form, in the midst of his glaring, 
 sharp description, he drew so tenderly and 
 vaguely, obliterating everything disturbing, 
 as if he saw her, in remembrance, only 
 through tears, he closed his eyes. 
 
 Suddenly he heard near him a sup- 
 pressed sound of pain, then something like 
 the falling of the over-abundant load of 
 blossoms from a tree among whose spring 
 adornment there yet moves no breath of 
 air. 
 
 He started, looked up there was Natalie
 
 124 Asbein. 
 
 on her knees before him, the beauty, the 
 queenly, proud one, and had embraced him 
 with both arms, as if she would shield him 
 from all the woes of earth, and sobbed as 
 if she could not console herself for his past 
 suffering. 
 
 " Natalie ! my angel, do you really love 
 me so?" 
 
 " One cannot love you enough, or recom- 
 pense you enough for all that you have 
 missed," whispered she. 
 
 And he had really for one moment sus- 
 pected that 
 
 He raised her on his knees. They did 
 not speak another word. Through the gar- 
 den at their feet the birches rustled in the 
 mild night breeze, and from the distance 
 one heard the sad voice of a marsh bird, 
 who with heavy beating wings flew to the 
 neighboring pond. 
 
 The most beautiful love will always be 
 that which has been sanctified by a great 
 compassion. In that mild summer night, 
 while all around them was fragrance and
 
 Asbe'in. 125 
 
 veiled light, Natalie's love had received its 
 consecration. 
 
 Three, four years passed ; a second little 
 child lay in the pretty, veiled cradle, from 
 which little Nikolai first made his solemn 
 observation of the world a dear little 
 plump maiden, whom they baptized Mascha, 
 after the grandmother, and whom Boris par- 
 ticularly idolized. There was still nothing 
 to report of Natalie's married life but love, 
 happiness, and beauty. Lensky kept every 
 unpleasant impression far from her, sur- 
 rounded her with the most touching care, 
 overwhelmed her with the most poetic at- 
 tentions. Her life at his side unrolled itself 
 like a long, secret, passionate love-poem. 
 
 Natalie's family had reconciled themselves 
 to her marriage. Even for the wise and ar- 
 rogant Sergei Alexandrovitch it had the 
 appearance that he had been mistaken in 
 his discouraging prediction, as happens even 
 to the wisest men, if with their predictions 
 they have only the sober probability in view,
 
 126 Asbein. 
 
 without thinking of the possibility of some 
 underlying miracle. After four years of 
 married life Natalie was as happy as a bride. 
 
 Still, Lensky's happiness was not as un- 
 clouded as that of his wife. A great un- 
 pleasantness became ever more significant 
 to him, the quite universal coldness of his 
 artistic relations. 
 
 It would be wrong to believe that Na- 
 talie, with systematic jealousy, had wished 
 to estrange him from the world of artists. 
 On the contrary, she had complied with his 
 wish to make her acquainted with his col- 
 leagues and their families, had herself asked 
 it of him, flatteringly. 
 
 The world of artists interested her. 
 There, everything was more animated, more 
 meaning, than the eternal sameness of good 
 society which she knew by heart, quite by 
 heart, she assured him tenderly. She made 
 it her ambition to win his acquaintances 
 for hers. But strangely enough, in spite of 
 all her seductive loveliness, she succeeded 
 only very incompletely.
 
 Asbe'in. 127 
 
 She had already known the tlite among 
 the artists. There is nothing further to be 
 said of her relations with these favpred of 
 the gods, exceptional existences, than that 
 she always felt honored by intercourse with 
 them, and pleased, and that, when with 
 them she ever vexed herself over the worn- 
 out old commonplace, that one should avoid 
 the acquaintance of famous men in order to 
 prevent disappointment a commonplace 
 which was probably invented for the con- 
 solation of those who, in advance, are ex- 
 cluded from intercourse with celebrities. 
 That Natalie always succeeded in winning 
 the sympathies of these exceptional natures 
 stands for itself. 
 
 But when it was a question of that great 
 crowd of artists, of the mixture of sickly 
 vanity, embarrassed affairs, depressing re- 
 lations, etc., then it was hard to build up a 
 friendship between Lensky's wife and his 
 old colleagues. 
 
 Envy of Lensky, envy which had refer- 
 ence largely to his artistic results, and in a
 
 128 Asbe'in, 
 
 less degree to his marriage and social posi- 
 tion, peeped out everywhere from these 
 people, and had its own results in soon 
 completely embittering the not very pleas- 
 ant relations between them and Natalie. 
 
 In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly 
 manner, they only met her in quite mod- 
 estly circumstanced families families of 
 a few true artists who yet could accomplish 
 nothing with their work but to honestly 
 and poorly provide for their seven or eight 
 children. Families of simple people, who 
 had formerly been good to Lensky in the 
 difficult beginning of his career, and to 
 whom he always showed the most faithful 
 adherence, the most prodigal generosity. 
 She also felt happy among these plain 
 people. 
 
 What wonder that these people would 
 all have gone through fire for him ! They 
 would also have all given of their best for 
 Natalie, whom without envy they wor- 
 shipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They 
 rejoiced that Lensky, their pride, their
 
 Asbetn. 129 
 
 idol, possessed such a beautiful and distin- 
 guished wife in their yes the daughter of 
 the emperor would not have been too good 
 for him. 
 
 Natalie thanked them for their great at- 
 tachment, as well as she could ; she reck- 
 oned it a special favor to receive these mod- 
 est people in her home, to invite them with 
 their wives and children, to entertain them 
 with distinction, to stuff all the children's 
 pockets full of bonbons, and give them 
 little parting presents. 
 
 But intercourse with these poor devils 
 was in reality only a sentimental game, 
 even as intercourse with the artistic tlite 
 was nothing but an ideal recreation. Nei- 
 ther the one nor the other sufficed to 
 firmly knit the band between Lensky's 
 wife and his former world, or to keep up 
 his popularity in that world. 
 
 Of all the opposition and difficulty which 
 would arise therefrom for Lensky's future 
 and especially for his yet to be won future
 
 1 30 Asbem. 
 
 as composer, Natalie still suspected noth- 
 ing. For her, the whole heaven was still 
 blue. 
 
 Then the first deep shadow fell on her 
 happiness. Lensky, to whom every long 
 separation from her was unbearable, when 
 he undertook a long tour through central 
 Europe, in spite of her express request, 
 could not resolve to leave her behind with 
 the children, in St. Petersburg. The little 
 children were left under the care of their 
 grandmother. 
 
 For the first time", Natalie was no amus- 
 ing, but a dull and nervous, travelling com- 
 panion. An unbearable anxiety followed 
 her like a foreboding. All his attempts to 
 console her were in vain. 
 
 In Dusseldorf, she received, by tele- 
 graph, the news that little Mascha was ill 
 with diphtheria. When she arrived in 
 Petersburg, half dead from anxiety and 
 breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin. 
 
 He was almost as desperate as she. He 
 overwhelmed himself with self-reproaches ;
 
 Asbem. 131 
 
 who knows, if they had watched the 
 child better, if they had thought of this or 
 that in caring for it. ... What torment, 
 to be obliged to say that to one's self ! A 
 reproach never passed her lips, she even 
 concealed her tears lest they should sadden 
 him. But from that unhappiness on, some- 
 thing in her formerly so elastic nature, so 
 capable of resistance, was broken forever. 
 The first jubilant time of their marriage 
 was at an end. 
 
 Together with the evermore unpleasant 
 friction with his colleagues, and the great 
 pain for his lost child, still another worry 
 announced itself to Lensky something 
 gnawing, and incessantly tormenting : a 
 daily increasing money embarrassment. 
 Natalie decidedly spent too much, but quite 
 naively, with the firm conviction that she 
 could not exist more economically ; where- 
 fore it was doubly hard for him to be 
 finally obliged to tell her that he could 
 not raise the money to continue the house-
 
 132 Asbe'in. 
 
 hold on the footing to which she had been 
 accustomed. 
 
 It was quite touching to see how fright- 
 ened she was when he made her the first 
 communication in reference to it fright- 
 ened, not at the prospect of having to save, 
 but only at the thoughtlessness by which 
 she had burdened Lensky with cares. She 
 immediately showed herself ready for the 
 most exaggerated reforms. But to live 
 with his wife like a proletary, in St. Pe- 
 tersburg, among her brilliant relations and 
 friends, he could not bring himself to do. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year, he 
 
 moved with his family to , a large 
 
 German capital, where he had accepted the 
 direction of a significant musical under- 
 taking. 
 
 But here the conflict between his artistic 
 and family life which had arisen through 
 his alliance with Natalie, came to light 
 with more detestable clearness. 
 
 He was in his element, as an artist whose 
 powers have found a wide, noble sway.
 
 Asbe'in. 133 
 
 The great musical undertaking, at whose 
 head they had placed him, flourished won- 
 derfully under his lead. The fiery earnest- 
 ness with which he undertook it won him 
 all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere in 
 
 was sympathetic to him for other 
 
 reasons. He had a crowd of old connec- 
 tions there, acquaintances of his first virtu- 
 oso period, people who surrounded him, 
 distinguished him, with whom he could 
 speak of his art which always remained 
 sacred and earnest to him, and never, for 
 him, deteriorated to a more or less noble 
 means of earning his living, or to a social 
 pedestal in quite a different manner than 
 with the elegant dilettantis who had grad- 
 ually crowded out every other society 
 from his house in St. Petersburg. They 
 gave one artistic festival after the other 
 in his honor, and all this entertained 
 him. 
 
 His wife appeared with him a couple of 
 times on such occasions, then she excused 
 herself she had no pleasure in them. She
 
 134 Asbe'in. 
 
 felt isolated, an insurmountable home-sick- 
 ness tormented her. 
 
 Without confessing it, for the first time 
 since her marriage the position which she 
 occupied with Lensky angered her. 
 
 In St. Petersburg she had always remained 
 with him the Princess Assanow, he had as- 
 cended to her world ; here she must sud- 
 denly satisfy herself with his world. She 
 was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek 
 in this world all the true interest, earnest- 
 ness, and nobility that were to be found 
 therein. 
 
 She had intimate intercourse only with 
 an old friend of her youth, a certain Count- 
 ess Stolnitzky, who went out but little 
 and consequently had time enough for 
 Natalie. 
 
 Lensky begged Natalie to open her draw- 
 ing-room one or two evenings a week, that 
 is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing- 
 ing-room became a meeting-place for all 
 kinds of artistic leaders, among which the 
 dramatic element formed the principal con-
 
 Asbe'in. 135 
 
 tingent, and this chiefly because Lensky 
 wished to have an opera performed. 
 
 For him, intercourse with dramatic artists 
 had no unpleasantness ; he had been accus- 
 tomed to it from youth. But it became un- 
 pleasant to Natalie after she had satisfied 
 that superficial curiosity which every woman 
 living in severely exclusive circles feels con- 
 cerning these theatrical people. 
 
 The only people that were still more un- 
 pleasant to Natalie, in her drawing-room, 
 than this crowd of people still smelling of 
 freshly washed-off paint, were the aristo- 
 crats who came there to meet the artists. 
 And many of these came very many, all 
 who coquetted with a little bit of musical 
 interest yes, and many others. " Very in- 
 teresting, these soirees at Lensky's," they 
 always said, when these were spoken of ; 
 "very interesting ; they always have very 
 good music there, and then one meets a 
 crowd of amusing people whom one never 
 sees anywhere else. And the wife is really 
 charming quite comme il faut."
 
 136 Asbein. 
 
 " She is a Russian princess," a foreigner 
 interrupted, who belonged to the diplomatic 
 corps. 
 
 The native women turned up their noses 
 repellently. They placed no great confi- 
 dence in the distinction of Russian prin- 
 cesses who married artists. 
 
 Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted 
 prejudices that she greeted the ladies who 
 came to her house with the greatest frank- 
 ness as her equals. She caused offence by 
 her naivet^, and noticed it. People came to 
 Lensky, not to her if she would only un- 
 derstand that they wished to be as polite 
 as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow 
 limits of well-bred society but she must 
 understand it. 
 
 She did understand. When she ob- 
 served that most of the ladies accepted her 
 invitations without returning them, yes, 
 when it happened that the art-loving Prin- 
 cess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a soiree, 
 and overlooked his wife, then she under- 
 stood. It began to tell upon her, to aggra- 
 vate her.
 
 Asbe'in. 137 
 
 She fulfilled her duties as hostess with 
 displeasure, did the honors negligently, and 
 did nothing to animate her receptions. 
 My God ! people came there to hear music 
 and to rave over her husband, she was no 
 longer necessary. She became quite foolish 
 and childish. 
 
 She was used to the homage that was 
 paid her husband, she would have been 
 fearfully angry if they had not paid him 
 enough ; but in Russia, this homage was 
 shown in quite a different, much nobler, 
 intenser form ; in Russia he was a great 
 man, before whom every one removed his 
 hat, a sacred being of whom the nation was 
 proud ; men and women of the highest rank 
 showed him the same respect. 
 
 But in - , except one or two partic- 
 ularly enthusiastic lovers of music, none of 
 the nobility appeared in his house, with the 
 exception of the ladies. Why did he ask 
 them? He ridiculed them but yet their 
 flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a 
 composition to more than one of them.
 
 1 38 As&em. 
 
 Natalie was almost beside herself with 
 rage. For the first time she felt a certain 
 jealousy. Among others, there was a little 
 dark Polish woman, married to a Swedish 
 diplomat, and separated from him, a Count- 
 ess Lowenskiold. She purred around him 
 like a kitten. 
 
 Formerly he would have noticed the 
 change in Natalie immediately, but for the 
 first time since their marriage he forgot, not 
 only in his study but elsewhere, his wife for 
 his art. He was so happy in his art, so 
 completely occupied with it, that he scarce- 
 ly noticed the pitiful social pin-pricks which 
 formerly would have caused him vexation 
 enough, and consequently did not con- 
 sider the importance they had for Nata- 
 lie. 
 
 The study of his opera, for which they 
 had placed at his disposal the best facilities 
 at the command of the Theatre, 
 went steadily forward. The artists liked to 
 work under his direction, and with enthusi- 
 asm did their utmost to do justice to his
 
 Asbe'in. 139 
 
 work. Joy fevered in every vein when he 
 came home from the rehearsals. 
 
 It was toward the end of the carnival. 
 One of Lensky's musical soirees had been 
 visited by quite an unusual number of bril- 
 liant visitors. A very large number of 
 ladies of the best society had been there. 
 
 They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, 
 with bare shoulders, and diamonds and 
 feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in 
 evening dress, while the wives of Lensky's 
 colleagues and all the ladies present not 
 belonging to the court circle had come in 
 high-necked dresses. 
 
 When the aristocratic ladies, with pro- 
 fuse thanks for the musical treat offered 
 them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, 
 because they must, " alas ! " still go " into 
 society," into Natalie's social world, but 
 which was closed to her in , Natalie 
 remained the only woman in her drawing- 
 room with bare shoulders. 
 
 Lensky, who had just accompanied some
 
 140 Asbezn. 
 
 tedious Highness politely out of the room, 
 now returned to the music-room, closed the 
 door, behind which the noble patroness had 
 disappeared, and cried gayly : " So, chil- 
 dren, now we can be among ourselves, and 
 enjoy a comfortable evening." 
 
 " Among ourselves ! " These words 
 pierced Natalie like a poisoned stiletto. 
 "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower 
 lip, angrily. 
 
 Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from 
 his temples with both hands, Lensky asked : 
 " Would the gentlemen like to play the 
 Schumann E-flat major quartette with me 
 before we sit down to supper?" Then he 
 looked over at Natalie and smiled. She 
 knew that he proposed this wonderful quar- 
 tette for her sake, because it was her favor- 
 ite, but she was already so over-excited 
 that the touching little attention made no 
 impression on her. She remained as de- 
 fiant and bad-tempered as before. 
 
 While they played she let her eyes wan- 
 der gloomily over the already empty hired
 
 Asbe'in. 141 
 
 cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around 
 in regular rows. She asked herself bitterly, 
 what really was the difference between her 
 " reception evenings " and any other con- 
 cert? that the people paid their admission 
 with compliments instead of money! And 
 while she made these useless and vexing 
 observations, the most noble music that 
 was ever written vibrated around her heart, 
 like an admonition of how small all these 
 worldly, outward vanities were in compari- 
 son with the lofty, god-like being of true 
 art ! And her obstinate heart had already 
 begun to understand the sermon and to be 
 ashamed, when she observed two bold eyes 
 of a man staring from across the room at 
 her bare shoulders. The eyes belonged to 
 a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most in- 
 fluential musical critic and journalist in 
 
 . Scarcely had he noticed that her 
 
 look met his when he left his chair, in 
 order, crossing the room, to take his place 
 near Natalie, and continue his insolent scru- 
 tiny from near by. He was a disagreeable
 
 142 Asbe'in. 
 
 man, with thick lips, spectacles, and boldly 
 displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could 
 not endure him, had formerly tolerated him 
 on Lensky's account. Now she felt so in- 
 sulted by his manner, that, with the ve- 
 hement impoliteness of a spoiled woman 
 whose pride is wounded and who is ex- 
 cluded from her natural sphere, she sprang 
 up, and turning her back directly to Mr. 
 Arnold Spatzig, hastened away from him. 
 
 And now the quartette was over, and also 
 the supper which followed, exquisite and 
 over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did 
 the honors with that heartiness, not over- 
 looking the least of his guests, which was 
 peculiar to him. 
 
 It was two o'clock, and the house was 
 empty; the lights still burned. Lensky 
 was busy arranging the music on the piano, 
 Natalie stood in the middle of the room, 
 drawn up to her full height, evidently try- 
 ing to suppress a nervous attack. She held 
 her handkerchief to her lips it was no use. 
 Suddenly she cried out : " Must I receive
 
 Asbein. 143 
 
 these people? I would rather scrub the 
 floor ! " And with that she made a gesture 
 as if she would tear something apart. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked slowly. 
 He had become deadly pale, and his voice 
 trembled. 
 
 She only drew her brows gloomily to- 
 gether and continued to gnaw at her hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 Then he lost patience. He seized a large 
 Japanese vase, and threw it with such force 
 on the floor that it broke in pieces ; then he 
 left the room, slamming the door behind 
 him. 
 
 But Natalie looked after him, offended, 
 and broke out in fierce, whimpering sobs. 
 
 A few minutes later when she, still weep- 
 ing and trembling in every limb, leaned 
 against a sofa, m whose cushions she had 
 buried her face, she felt a warm hand on 
 her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had 
 come up to her. The traces of his diffi- 
 cultly mastered irritation were still on his 
 deathly pale face, but he bent down anx-
 
 144 Asbe'in. 
 
 iously to her and said gently : " Calm your- 
 self, please, Natatie ; it is no matter. Poor 
 Natalie ! I should have thought of it 
 sooner. You shall never again receive any 
 one not a person who does not please 
 you, only stop crying ; that I cannot 
 bear." 
 
 At the first friendly word that he said to 
 her, her whole ill humor changed to tor- 
 menting remorse and shame. " You will 
 not take what I said to you in earnest," 
 said she. " It is not possible that you 
 should take this madness in earnest. I am 
 so ashamed ah, I cannot tell you how 
 ashamed I am ! I acted unjustifiably, but 
 I was so tired, so nervous scold me, be 
 angry with me, and only then forgive me, 
 or else your indulgence will oppress me too 
 heavily," and with that she. kissed his hands 
 and sobbed sobbed incessantly. 
 
 He caressed her like a little child whom 
 one wishes to soothe, and she continued : 
 " I will suit myself better to my position, I 
 will be friendly to every one as if I could
 
 Asbe'in. 145 
 
 not make that little sacrifice to your artis- 
 tic position ! " 
 
 Then he interrupted her : " I will accept 
 no sacrifice from you, not the slightest, 
 that I cannot do," said he. " What have 
 you to trouble yourself about my artistic 
 position ? You have nothing at all to do 
 but to love me and be happy if you still 
 can," he added softly, with a tenderness 
 that for the first time since his marriage 
 had a bitter savor. 
 
 But she looked up at him in the midst of 
 her tears, with glorified happiness. " If I 
 still can ? " she whispered, drawing his 
 head down to her he now sat on the sofa 
 beside her, with his arm around her waist 
 " if I still can ! " His lips met hers, her 
 head sank on his shoulder. 
 
 The candles in the chandeliers had 
 burned low down, one of them went out, 
 and in going out threw a couple of sparks 
 down on the pieces of the Japanese vase 
 which Lensky had broken in his anger. 
 He had sent it to Natalie filled with roses,
 
 146 Asbe'tn. 
 
 in Rome, while they were betrothed, there- 
 fore she loved it and had brought it with 
 them to . 
 
 His eyes rested on the pieces with a 
 peculiar sad look. " And now lie down 
 and see that you sleep after your ex- 
 citement," said he to the young wife. She 
 followed him like a little child. He mixed 
 her the sleeping potion of orange essence, 
 to which she was accustomed, and calmed 
 her with pleasant patient words. A happy 
 smile lay on her lips when she at length 
 fell asleep. 
 
 But he did not close his eyes during the 
 whole night, he did not even lie down ; but 
 sat in his room at the writing-table. He 
 wished to work on something, but the 
 music-paper remained untouched beneath 
 his pen. 
 
 How could she so give way, at the first 
 little trial which she had ever had ? Why 
 had she spoken of a sacrifice ? sacrifice ! 
 he would take no sacrifice from her.
 
 Asbe'in. 147 
 
 Natalie's reception days were given up 
 under pretext of the illness of his young 
 wife. From that time, Lensky saw most 
 of his friends only outside of his house 
 his " patronesses " he saw no more. 
 
 Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful 
 discontent, was ashamed of the scene she 
 had made her husband, and still was foolish 
 enough to rejoice over her victory, and to 
 fully profit by it. 
 
 She offered all her intellectual, flattering, 
 charming lovableness to recompense for 
 the loss she had caused him, and to quite 
 win him again for herself. She thought of 
 all his preferences in her housekeeping, 
 which, in the beginning, she had somewhat 
 neglected in - ; with half unconscious 
 slyness, she knew how to profit by his small 
 as well as his great qualities ; to attain her 
 aim, knew how to touch his heart as well 
 as to flatter his vanity. In full measure 
 she attained what she strove for. Forget- 
 ting all the prudence which his position de- 
 manded, he laid just as enthusiastic homage
 
 148 Asbein. 
 
 at her feet as in the very first time of his 
 marriage. But she was so charming ! And 
 how well her defiant arrogance became her! 
 that arrogance which would bend to no one 
 and only with her loved one melted into 
 passionate submission. 
 
 What did the great artist coterie which 
 his wife had repulsed say to all this ? Oh, 
 who could trouble one's self about all these 
 people? 
 
 Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated 
 period he had met with one vexation that 
 concerned him very nearly. Three weeks 
 before the appointed date for the produc- 
 tion of his " Corsair," the prima donna of 
 
 the opera, Madame D., an artist of the 
 
 first rank, for whom he had quite specially 
 written the principal feminine r6le, declared 
 that she would not sing it under any con- 
 sideration. Lensky knew very well that he 
 had to thank the senseless arrogance of his 
 wife for the sudden opposition of this irri- 
 table leader ; it was bitter to him ; but with- 
 out telling Natalie a word of it, he choked
 
 Asbein. 149 
 
 down this unpleasant affair, and submitted 
 to seeing the part which the artiste had 
 thoroughly learned and brought to such 
 splendid perfection intrusted now to the 
 weak powers of a talented but awkward 
 beginner. 
 
 The evening of the representation came. 
 They were both feverish, he and she ; but 
 she fevered in expectation of a great tri- 
 umph, he trembled before a defeat. 
 
 He knew that his work had three things 
 against it : a libretto that, for an opera, was 
 over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic 
 effect, the weak representation of the prin- 
 cipal rdle, and the whole coterie of artists 
 and bohemians in the audience excited 
 against him by the arrogance of his wife. 
 Perhaps his music would save the situation. 
 The music was beautiful, that he knew ; he 
 must build on that. 
 
 Natalie made the sign of the cross on his 
 forehead and hung a consecrated Byzantine 
 saint's picture, in a strange gold and black
 
 1 50 Asbein. 
 
 enamel frame, around his neck before he 
 went into the fire, that is to say, before he 
 drove to the opera-house to take the baton 
 in his hand. He smiled at this supersti- 
 tious action and let it happen. 
 
 The greatest heroes like to avail them- 
 selves of a little celestial protection before 
 a battle. 
 
 In the opera-house he found everything 
 in the best condition, courageous, ready for 
 battle. An hour later he mounted the di- 
 rector's rostrum. 
 
 Once he turned his head to the audience, 
 and his eyes sought Natalie. There she 
 sat near the stage in a box in the first row, 
 which she shared with the Countess Stol- 
 nitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in 
 her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi 
 which he had given her as bridegroom ; 
 around her neck was wound a thick string 
 of pearls which the Empress of Russia had 
 sent him for her once when he played at 
 court. In the whole theatre there was no 
 woman who could compare with her in
 
 Asbein. 151 
 
 proud, beaming, and yet indescribably 
 lovely beauty. She smiled at him con- 
 strainedly. What was not hidden in that 
 scarcely perceptible smile ! For the last 
 time a kind of happy, proud delirium of 
 love lay hold upon him. He knocked on 
 the desk, raised his arm, and the violins 
 began. x 
 
 With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnest- 
 ness, and with that, quite classically severe 
 in the musical roundness and connection of 
 the motives, the overture sounded through 
 the crowded hall. It was rather too 
 long, and as the learned ones among the 
 audience remarked, was better suited for 
 the first movement of a symphony than the 
 introduction of an opera. But what of that ! 
 the music was beautiful, wonderfully beau- 
 tiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon- 
 like, ravishing power. Here, also, sounded 
 the strange Arabian succession of tones 
 again, which was the characteristic of all his 
 compositions, the devil's tones : Asbein. 
 
 Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing
 
 152 As be in. 
 
 in her ears, the beating of her heart was 
 too loud. 
 
 The last piercing chord resounded through 
 the hall. What was that? An immense 
 burst of applause, unending bravos ; the 
 overture had to be repeated. 
 
 It was with difficulty that Natalie could 
 keep from sobbing aloud. Again her smile 
 sought his. A beautiful expression of 
 noble, earnest peace was on his features, 
 but his glance did not answer hers, he had 
 forgotten her for his work. 
 
 The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely 
 breathed, her hot blood crept slowly through 
 her veins like chilling metal, her ears no 
 longer buzzed, on the contrary her hearing 
 was uncommonly sharp ; only she could not 
 take in the music 1 , but listened to all kinds 
 of other things. The rustling of a dress, 
 the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a 
 voice caused her such excitement that it 
 seemed to her, each time, as if she had 
 been shot through the heart by a pistol. 
 The unexpected result of the overture
 
 Asbein. 153 
 
 had increased her nervous tension still 
 further. 
 
 During the first two acts the opinion re- 
 mained favorable. After the second act, 
 the Russian ambassador presented himself 
 to Natalie to congratulate her. 
 
 While she received his congratulations, 
 still trembling with excitement, she sud- 
 denly heard quite loud talking, in a box not 
 far from her. 
 
 It was the box of that same Princess C., 
 who was mentioned as particularly musical, 
 and who had invited Lensky to a soirte and 
 passed over Natalie. Between her and 
 another art-loving woman sat Mr. Arnold 
 Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had ac- 
 cess to the highest circles of society, that is 
 to say, he was patronized by a couple of 
 ladies who were bored in their " world," 
 and who consequently liked to attract men 
 from some " other world " to them for a 
 short entertainment, not a long engagement, 
 to be amused by them. 
 
 " These plebeian men at least take pains
 
 1 54 Asbe'in. 
 
 to amuse," the ladies were accustomed to 
 remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took 
 pains to amuse. 
 
 Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, 
 and stared long and boldly in Natalie's 
 face. 
 
 The third act began with an aria by Gual- 
 nare, that is to say, with a kind of duet 
 between her and the ocean, which was rep- 
 resented by the orchestra. For a concert 
 piece the number was interesting and origi- 
 nal, but peculiarly unsuited to the begin- 
 ning of the third act of an opera. Only the 
 splendid vocal powers and the poetic com- 
 prehension of Madame D., for whom the 
 aria was written, could have saved it ; the 
 powers of the beginner who sang the part 
 of Gualnare that evening were not at all 
 equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the 
 exertions of the two preceding acts, sound- 
 ed almost extinct, her acting was awkward. 
 
 Natalie observed the bad impression 
 which this number made on the audience. 
 Anxiously she looked around the theatre:
 
 Asbe'in. 155 
 
 the people were patient, had too much 
 sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to in- 
 considerately insult the composer. 
 
 On the stage, still continued the endless 
 ocean duet. Still, in the same monotonous 
 time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and 
 retreated from them, quite as if she were 
 dancing a pas de deux with the sea. Then 
 Natalie heard laughing ; the laughing 
 sounded from the box of Princess C. 
 
 Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, 
 whispered something to her. She laughed 
 how heartily she laughed ! The opera- 
 glasses of many ladies in the boxes sought 
 the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, 
 the Princess laughed, the whole theatre 
 laughed. 
 
 The aria was at an end, the gallery ap- 
 plauded. " Ss ss ss." What was that 
 cutting, piercing sound which killed the ap- 
 plause? 
 
 Natalie became white as chalk ; her friend 
 sought her hand ; Natalie drew it away ; no 
 human sympathy could be of use to her.
 
 156 Asbein. 
 
 From that moment the enthusiasm of the 
 audience rapidly declined. The lack of dra- 
 matic action in the libretto became more 
 and more significant. More and more dif- 
 ficultly the poor music dragged along amidst 
 a succession of glaring spectacular effects, 
 which monotonously made place for each 
 other without ever forming an interesting 
 contrast. And the music was so beautiful. 
 There was something so heavily majestic in 
 the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle 
 monotonous and over-laden, but in the ac- 
 companiment so wonderfully beautiful in 
 spite of all, and furnished with a richness of 
 melody unattainable by any of the other 
 composers of the time, never approaching 
 the trivial, but always remaining noble. 
 
 The audience was weary, and like every 
 wearied audience, mocking; its musical com- 
 prehension was worn out. From the mid- 
 dle of the fourth act people began to leave 
 the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the 
 close, not a hand moved. 
 
 Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie
 
 Asbe'in. 157 
 
 silently down the steps. Natalie got into 
 her carriage and directed it to the stage en- 
 trance. She had promised to call for Len- 
 sky after the opera. More dead than alive 
 she sat in the pretty coupe 1 and waited. 
 The air was sharp, it was a frosty March 
 night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mock- 
 ery from the unreachable heavens, quite as 
 if they were laughing to think that once 
 more a child of man had tried to storm this 
 heaven and had so pitiably failed. 
 
 A half-hour had passed ; at last Natalie 
 sprang from the carriage and hastened up 
 the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. 
 He was deathly pale, his hat was put on his 
 head differently from usual, in a kind of 
 enterprising and challenging manner ; his 
 walk had something negligent, swinging; 
 there was a vagabond trace in his carriage 
 that Natalie had never before perceived in 
 him. He held his cigarette between his 
 teeth and had the little singer on his arm 
 who had to-day impersonated Gualnare in 
 his opera. Many of the singers, as well as
 
 158 Asbe'in. 
 
 the members of the orchestra, came down 
 the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty, whis- 
 pering throng. For the first time, Natalie 
 remarked a certain similarity, one might 
 almost say a common family resemblance, 
 between her hero and these other " artists." 
 The men all had the same manner of wear- 
 ing their hats and swaggering in their walk 
 as he had to-day. 
 
 Although these men were more than ever 
 repulsive to her, she greeted them with anx- 
 ious politeness. " I was afraid you were 
 ill," she said, while she glanced sadly and 
 anxiously at Boris. " I have already waited 
 half an hour for you." 
 
 " So ! I am very sorry," replied he, and 
 his voice sounded rougher than formerly. 
 " I sent a messenger to you, he must have 
 missed you. I cannot go home with you 
 this evening, we " he looked over his 
 shoulder at the following crowd " are 
 going to have supper together. After a 
 lost battle the commander must care for the 
 strengthening of his troops." He laughed
 
 Asbe'tn. 1 59 
 
 harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand 
 of the singer who hung on his arm. 
 
 " A lost battle ! " said Natalie. " Lost 
 but the first two acts were a great success ! " 
 
 " ' Don Juan ' did not succeed at the first 
 representation," remarked some one behind 
 Lensky. He turned around and looked at 
 the man with a comical, threatening ges- 
 ture ; then he said, with the expression of a 
 man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts 
 out with a witticism : " Who laughs last, 
 laughs best ! " 
 
 Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, 
 in the middle of the narrow stairs. Her 
 splendid fur cloak had half slipped down 
 from her shoulders ; her simple, distin- 
 guished toilet stood out in strange relief 
 from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, 
 motley evening adornments of the singers. 
 
 " You will take cold, wrap yourself up 
 better," said Lensky, while he came up to 
 her and drew the fur up around her neck. 
 
 " Will you take me with you to your sup- 
 per? I would come with the greatest
 
 160 Asbe'tn. 
 
 pleasure ; je serai gentille avec tout le 
 monde ! " she whispered, softly and suppli- 
 catingly to him. 
 
 " What an idea ! " said he, repellently. 
 " No, to-night I sup as a bachelor. You bar 
 the passage. Drive home quite calmly. 
 Adieu ! " 
 
 He pushed her into the carriage, and 
 went. -She put her head out of the window 
 of the coupe to look after him. She saw 
 how he got into a fiacre with the singer ; 
 one of the men crawled in after him ; then 
 she heard some one laughing, harshly, 
 gipsy-like, was that he ? Then came a great 
 rattling of windows, and creaking and roll- 
 ing of wheels. Her way and his parted. 
 Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, 
 which all seemed red to her, she rolled away 
 in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten 
 minutes later, weary and miserable, she 
 crept up the steps of her residence. She 
 knew that something terrible had happened, 
 something that not only embittered her 
 present, but would darken the future, that 

 
 Asbein. 161 
 
 for her much more had gone wrong than 
 the result of an opera. 
 
 " Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull 
 through ; even the best operas have some- 
 times not immediately found approval with 
 the public," said Lensky, with the awkward, 
 forced smile that had not left his lips since 
 the morning after his fiasco. The challeng- 
 ing, gipsy humor with which, in the begin- 
 ning, he had sought to bluster over his dis- 
 appointment, had not lasted long. Quiet, 
 weary, and depressed, he dragged himself 
 around as if after a severe illness. Natalie 
 did what she could to be agreeable to him ; 
 her heart bled with pity, but she did not 
 venture to approach him. 
 
 He avoided her, and if she spoke to him 
 his answers sounded forced or vexed. 
 
 To-day, for the first time since the fatal 
 evening, he turned to her with a remark in 
 reference to his work. It was the third 
 day after the first production of the opera, 
 and at breakfast. Natalie had just read to
 
 1 62 Asbein. 
 
 him many criticisms from the newspapers 
 which had arrived. In many, Lensky's 
 magnificent musical gifts were praised. 
 
 " Perhaps the thing will pull through," 
 said Lensky, and Natalie replied : 
 
 " Naturally, the opera will make a career 
 for itself. You must yourself have for- 
 gotten how beautiful your music is, if you 
 can doubt that." 
 
 " Is it really beautiful ? I really do not 
 know," murmured he. " One is so seldom 
 able to believe it if others shrug their 
 shoulders. To improvise variations on the 
 old theme mon Sonnet est charmant is a 
 tasteless occupation." 
 
 There was a ring at the door-bell ; he 
 listened. 
 
 " Do you expect anything?" asked Nata- 
 lie, and then she accidentally looked at the 
 clock. It was already very late, and the 
 hour at which he formerly had been accus- 
 tomed to sit down to work was long past. 
 She saw very well that he only trifled with 
 time like a man who is too tormented by
 
 Asbe'in. 163 
 
 inward unrest to be able to resolve on an 
 earnest occupation. 
 
 " Yes," he replied. " I do not under- 
 stand why the Neue Zeit has not yet ar- 
 rived." 
 
 Natalie lowered her eyes. The Neue 
 Zeit was the journal in which Dr. Arnold 
 Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his 
 musical feuilletons, usually appeared. 
 
 " That " Lensky motioned to the pile 
 of other papers " is all very pretty and 
 pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anx- 
 ious to see what Spatzig will say." 
 
 " Do you consider Spatzig decisive ? " 
 asked Natalie, constrainedly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But you told me yourself that his judg- 
 ment was always one-sided, prejudiced, and 
 superficial ; that he was really only a wit 
 and no critic," murmured Natalie. 
 
 " I still think so, but nevertheless he has 
 here taken upon himself the monopoly of 
 musical good taste," replied Lensky. " The 
 most intellectual part of the public, that is
 
 164 Asbe'tn. 
 
 to say all the subscribers, fancy they can 
 only consider an article of his as true. He 
 has taken out a patent for it, like Marquis, 
 in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, 
 which these people like. A criticism is so 
 easily noticed, one always appears intel- 
 lectual if one cites it, the more malicious it 
 is the better. Until now, Spatzig has 
 spared me, hm hm Boris smiled 
 forcedly. " He even once compared me to 
 Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to 
 avoid me. Have you had anything with 
 him, Natalie ?" 
 
 Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. 
 " I cannot endure him," said she ; " and it is 
 possible that he has noticed it ; in fact, in 
 reference to a certain point, one cannot 
 have patience with a man." 
 
 " He surely has not presumed upon 
 you?" Lensky started up angrily. 
 
 " No, no ! He did not have an opportu- 
 nity," said Natalie, very arrogantly. " Not 
 that : but he has a way of forcing himself 
 upon one ; of looking at a woman "
 
 Asbe'in. 165 
 
 " That is to say he has bad manners," 
 said Lensky. " Now 
 
 At this moment there was another ring 
 at the door-bell. Shortly after the servant 
 brought on a salver a whole pile of news- 
 papers in their wrappings, which had just 
 come by post. Lensky opened them hasti- 
 ly ; they were all copies of the same paper 
 of Fortschritt, and in every copy there 
 was a twelve-column-long notice marked 
 with a blue or black pencil : " A musical 
 enjoyment by design and intention," and 
 with the motto, for title, " From whence 
 the great discord arises which rings through 
 this world (read opera)." 
 
 Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature. 
 
 "Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. 
 " I did not know that he also wrote for 
 Forlschritt. '' 
 
 " Do not read the thing," said Natalie, 
 who, with feminine quickness, had already 
 glanced over the article. " I beg you ; why 
 should you swallow the poison ?" 
 
 But he shook her roughly from him, bent
 
 1 66 Asbem. 
 
 over the paper, and read half aloud : " If 
 there were a musical ' Our Father/ the last 
 supplicating request would be : deliver us 
 from all evil, but especially from all virtuoso 
 music. By his opera, Lensky has again 
 given us a significant example of how 
 greatly the reproductive activity of an 
 artist hinders the development of his cre- 
 ative powers. His first smaller composi- 
 tions really had always a certain melodic 
 freshness. But in this last work, Lensky, 
 like all men poor in invention, has shown 
 himself a follower of that inconsolable mu- 
 sical pessimism which regards ennui and a 
 feeling of universal, oppressive discomfort 
 as a sine qua non of every distinguished 
 musical work. 
 
 " The public, in a sympathetic frame of 
 mind with the loved and distinguished 
 master, in the beginning of the opera 
 strained their good taste so far that they 
 desired the repetition of the extremely tire- 
 some overture, made up of badly connected 
 motives, reminding one of Meyerbeer, Hal-
 
 Asbe'in. 167 . 
 
 vy, Gounod. But with the best inten- 
 tions, the cut-and-dried wonder brought 
 with them was not proof against the yawn- 
 ing monotony of the never-ending fourth 
 act. Only the grotesque side of the unfor- 
 tunate opera, which ever became more, 
 prominent in the course of the evening, 
 helped the ill-used public over the dry 
 emptiness of this musical desert. One 
 could at least laugh heartily. What a con- 
 solation that was for the spectator, but 
 hardly one for those who took part. 
 
 " One cannot understand how such an 
 
 artist of the first rank as Mr. could 
 
 submit to make himself laughable in the 
 role of Conrad. 
 
 Lensky became paler and paler ; he 
 reached for a glass of water. 
 
 " Do not read any further," begged Nata- 
 lie. " What does it matter what the liar 
 writes ? your music speaks for itself. This 
 evening you will see how the public will 
 applaud you, will receive you, to recom- 
 pense you for this pitiful insult."
 
 1 68 Asbein. 
 
 The second representation of " The Cor- 
 sair" was fixed for that evening. 
 
 There was another ring at the door-bell ; 
 the servant brought a letter. Lensky broke 
 it open hastily, and with a furious gesture 
 threw it away, struck his fist on the table, 
 and sprang up. ^ 
 
 " What is it ? " called Natalie, beside her- 
 self. 
 
 " Nothing ; a trifle ; the opera is post- 
 poned ; the tenor has announced himself 
 ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. " He has no 
 pleasure in making himself laughable a 
 second time. It is over ; " passing the palm 
 of his hand under his chin, with the gesture 
 by which one understands that some one 
 has been executed. 
 
 Natalie rushed up to him, but he impa- 
 tiently motioned her away, and hurried by 
 her to the door. All at once he remained 
 standing, reached under his collar, tore off 
 the little gold chain with the saint's picture 
 which Natalie had hung round his neck be- 
 fore the first representation of "The Cor.
 
 Asbe'in. 169 
 
 sair," and flung it at her feet. Then he 
 went into his study. She heard how he 
 locked the door behind him. 
 
 How benumbed she still stood on the 
 same spot where he had shaken her off 
 from him he had shaken her off ! 
 
 How he must suffer to pain her so ! 
 Then she bent down to the poor little 
 amulet which he had thrown away. She 
 understood him. She had never been lack- 
 ing in sentimental-poetic manners, but when 
 it was necessary to sacrifice a humor for 
 him, her love had not sufficed. 
 
 Her fault was great, but the punishment 
 was fearful.
 
 THIRD BOOK. 
 
 A SHORT time after the fiasco of his op- 
 era Lensky resigned his office in . 
 
 His position there had become unbearable 
 to him. He had made no plans for the dis- 
 tant future ; for the present he travelled 
 with his family to Paris. 
 
 How happy Natalie could have felt here 
 if the still depressed mood of Lensky had 
 not caused her such heavy anxiety. Not 
 that he had further shown himself in the 
 slightest degree disagreeable to her no, 
 not a single direct reproof crossed his lips ; 
 he even, without speaking a word about it, 
 begged her pardon for his momentary rough- 
 ness by a thousand silent attentions. But 
 what good did that do her? His happiness 
 was gone ; he was gloomy and taciturn. 
 Faint-hearted, like all very self-indulgent 
 men, even doubting his formerly revered
 
 Asbe'in. 171 
 
 talent as composer, for the moment he had 
 completely lost his belief in himself. 
 
 She did what she could to distract him 
 all was in vain. And all might have been 
 so pleasant ! The Parisian artist world was 
 so large that she quite easily, avoiding all 
 impure elements contained therein, could 
 associate only with those who were lovable, 
 interesting, and sympathetic. Besides, she 
 was now ready for the most exaggerated 
 concessions. If Lensky had wished to write 
 a ballet she would have invited the ballet 
 dancers to breakfast, and been intimate with 
 the premiere danseuse. The lovely impru- 
 dence which, even with her uncommon in- 
 tellectual gifts, still made the foundation of 
 her petted, undisciplined being, drove her 
 from one exaggeration to another. 
 
 He gave a succession of concerts, and all 
 Paris lay at his feet. Natalie sat in one of 
 the first rows in the concert hall and rejoiced 
 over the triumphs of her husband. Occa- 
 sionally, if the hour for the concert was 
 early, she brought her little son with her
 
 172 Asbein. 
 
 arid taught him to be proud of his father. 
 Little Nikolai looked charming in his Rus- 
 sian costume, with the broad velvet trou- 
 sers and silk shirt. He always sat there 
 quite brave and quiet, with the solemn ex- 
 pression of face of a child whom one has 
 taken to church for the first time ; only if 
 the applause bursf out quite too loudly, he 
 became very excited and stood up on his 
 chair in order to see his father better. 
 Then Natalie kissed him, and blushed at 
 her lack of restraint. And around them the 
 audience whispered : " That is his child " 
 Tiens! il a de la chance ! " "Us sent adora- 
 bles tons les deux /" "On dit quelle est une 
 prince sse ! " 
 
 After the concert she went with the little 
 fellow in the green-room to fetch her hus- 
 band. The most beautiful women in Paris 
 crowded around him. He received their 
 homage quite coolly, and while Natalie, 
 smiling and polite, did honor to his fame, 
 he played with his boy, whom he over- 
 whelmed with caresses, without being at
 
 Asbetn. 173 
 
 all confused by the presence of strangers. 
 " Admire this if you must admire some- 
 thing!" he burst out once, angry at the in- 
 trusive enthusiasm of a very pretty Amer- 
 ican woman, and with that he raised the 
 child on a table to show him to her. " He 
 is worth the trouble," he growled, and truly 
 such was the case ! 
 
 One day, about the middle of May, when 
 Natalie, somewhat out of breath, holding 
 her boy with one hand, and a bunch of red 
 roses in the other, came home to lunch, she 
 found Lensky with two strangers in the 
 little hotel drawing-room. One of them 
 was a young man with long hair and short 
 neck, in whom she recognized a famous 
 piano virtuoso ; the second, a small, dried- 
 up man, with a yellow, hard, sharp face, she 
 saw for the first time. 
 
 At her appearance they both withdrew. 
 Lensky accompanied them out. 
 
 " How you have hurried," said he smil- 
 ing, when he reentered the room. " You 
 are quite heated ! "
 
 174 Asbein. 
 
 " Yes, I hurried very much ; I was afraid 
 I would be late to lunch. I know how you 
 hate unpunctuality." And then she sat 
 down on the sofa, and handed her hat and 
 shawl to the nurse, who had come in 
 to get Nikolinka a nurse by the name 
 of Palagea, in a Russian national cos- 
 tume which created a furore on the boule- 
 vard. 
 
 " Why did you not take a carriage, little 
 goose ? " asked he. 
 
 " To economize, Boris Nikolaivitch," re- 
 plied she, with mischievous earnestness. 
 Then laughing up at him with her great 
 tender eyes, she added : " Besides, the doc- 
 tor has expressly advised me to take more 
 exercise." 
 
 " The doctor ?" said he, anxiously. " Do 
 you feel ill ? Why did you consult a phy- 
 sician?" 
 
 "Yes, why?" murmured she, softly. 
 " Sit down on the sofa by me, so that I can 
 whisper something to you." 
 
 " What are you talking about?" said he,
 
 Asbe'in. 175 
 
 hoarsely, without stirring. " What do you 
 mean? What?" 
 
 " You are fabulously uncomprehending 
 to-day," laughed she, and went up to him. 
 " One cannot scream such a thing across 
 the whole room, and as the mountain will 
 not come to Mahomet" she had now be- 
 come very red ; laying her hand on his 
 shoulder, she whispered : " O Boris ; can you 
 still not guess ? t . I am so glad ! " 
 
 " Natalie ! " he burst out. " You do not 
 mean to say " . . . He shook her from 
 him, stamped his foot, and with a furious 
 exclamation left the room. 
 
 Ten minutes later, when he entered the 
 little dining-room where they had served 
 lunch, Natalie's maid announced that he 
 must not wait for her mistress, as she was 
 feeling ill. He hurried to her bedroom. 
 She sat on a sofa, her hands in her lap. 
 Her great eyes stared into the distance, she 
 looked like a corpse. 
 
 He sat down by her, drew her on his 
 knee, and overwhelmed her with caresses.
 
 176 Asbe'in. 
 
 "You are right to be angry, quite right. 
 I was detestable," said he ; " but you know 
 what a bear you have for a husband. It is 
 only because I love you so dearly that now, 
 just now, the thing is so inconvenient. Oh, 
 my little dove, my heart ! " He pressed 
 the palms of her hands to his lips and 
 stroked her cheeks. 
 
 Every vexation melted away in the 
 warmth of his manner. She suddenly be- 
 gan to sob, but not from grief. 
 
 " Do you think, then, that I would not 
 have been glad ? " he said to her tenderly. 
 " But now, do you see, just now 
 
 Then he told her the state of affairs. 
 The man in the Havana brown overcoat 
 was the famous impressario Morinsky, with 
 whom Lensky had just made an engage- 
 ment for a concert tour in the United 
 States. Morinsky had offered him a small 
 fortune. " You know how hard it is for me 
 to part from you," he concluded. " I wished 
 to take you with me you and the boy, for 
 he can put off school for another year. I
 
 Asbe'in. 177 
 
 thought it was the most favorable moment, 
 and now it is so stupid, so horribly 
 stupid ! " 
 
 She had listened very quietly; now she 
 raised her head and said uneasily : 
 
 " And now you naturally will have to give 
 up the American project?" 
 
 " That is impossible," replied he, turning 
 his face from her, " but I will try that is, 
 I will put off my departure in any case until 
 the great event is over." 
 
 "And then?" She had slipped down 
 from his knee and walked up and down the 
 room uneasily. " And then ? " she repeated, 
 while she beat on the floor quite imperi- 
 ously with the tip of her little foot. 
 
 " Then," said he slowly. " Well, then 
 you must either decide to accompany me 
 and leave the children behind, or I must go 
 alone." 
 
 " How long will you stay away ? " she 
 asked with short breath. 
 
 " Eight months, ten months." 
 
 " So ten months ! " she spoke slowly.
 
 178 Asbein. 
 
 " And you will part from me voluntar- 
 ily, without compelling necessity for ten 
 months? " 
 
 Her face had become ashy, the words fell 
 harsh and cutting from her dry lips. 
 
 " You must not take the thing so desper- 
 ately," replied Lensky, with an embarrass- 
 ment which did not escape her. " Ten 
 months are soon over." 
 
 Something that sounded half like a laugh, 
 half like a cry of anguish escaped her lips. 
 She stroked the hair back from her temples 
 with both hands. Her eyes had suddenly 
 become unnaturally large, and were opened 
 uncommonly wide. They were no longer 
 the eyes of a usually wise woman. 
 
 " Ten months ! " she murmured, with ex- 
 tinguished voice, like one who speaks in the 
 midst of an oppressive dream, " ten months 
 do you no longer remember how you 
 used to miss me, if it was only a question 
 of weeks, of days, and not ten months ! 
 But this is no separation, this is a final part- 
 ing, this is the end of all ! Oh, do not look
 
 Asbein. 179 
 
 at me so ! I am not crazy, I know what I 
 am saying I know very well! You will 
 come back certainly you will come back, 
 if no malicious illness snatches you away 
 during your journey ; but how will you 
 come back? Like a stranger you will return 
 under your own roof, and a stranger, from 
 that hour, will you remain. You will have 
 acquired other customs, other needs; the 
 tender restrictions of family life will confine 
 you like a forced burden ! The good, and 
 magnificent, and beautiful in you will still 
 exist, because it is immortal like everything 
 that is god-like ; but it will be grown wild 
 and soiled, and I will no longer be able to 
 force my way through what has towered be- 
 tween me and your heart ! And, more than 
 all that, the sweet voice which, until now, 
 has whispered such wonderful songs within 
 you, will be silenced in the confusion of 
 your wandering life ; your genius will no 
 longer be able to express itself, it will from 
 then burn in you like a great unrest, and 
 you will feel the treasure which Providence
 
 i8o Asbetn. 
 
 has implanted in you as an oppressive bur- 
 den, and will no longer be able to find the 
 magic word which can lift this treasure! " 
 
 He stared gloomily before him. 
 
 "Ah, Boris! do not sin against yourself, 
 because I have sinned against you," Natalie 
 began once more, with hoarse, broken voice. 
 " Do not let your wings be broken by this 
 first disappointment. Your opera was won- 
 derfully beautiful yes but it was not the 
 best that you can give ! Give your best, it 
 will stand so high that the hand of envy 
 can no longer reach it. Have patience, 
 sacrifice the virtuoso to the composer in 
 you, and you will see what a splendid re- 
 ward you will reap ! " 
 
 With heavily contracted brows, he list- 
 ened to this speech, vibrating with des- 
 peration. When Natalie had ended, he 
 remained silent. She believed she had con- 
 quered. Leaning against him she laid 
 both arms around his neck, and whispered 
 to him : " You will stay, Boris will you 
 not ? you will stay ! "
 
 Asbe'in. 181 
 
 For a little while he let her stay, then he 
 freed himself from her arms, as one frees 
 one's self from a shackle, and called out : 
 " It cannot be torment me no longer I 
 must go ! " With that he sprang up to 
 leave the room. At the door he turned 
 round to Natalie, and said: "Are you 
 coming? Lunch will be cold." 
 
 " Presently ! " said Natalie, " presently ! " 
 She shivered, she felt the chill of a great 
 fright in all her members. It was worse 
 than she had believed! Something allured 
 him away. After the first unpleasant sur- 
 prise at the frustration of his plans had dis- 
 appeared, he rejoiced at the opportunity of 
 being able to free himself from the chain, 
 and to separate himself from his family for 
 a time. What she had feared for the fut- 
 ure had already arrived the gypsy ele- 
 ment in his nature had awakened ! 
 
 The agreement between Lensky and the 
 impressario was really completed, the con- 
 tract was signed, Lensky's departure fixed
 
 1 82 Asbe'tn. 
 
 for the beginning of October. Meanwhile, 
 he would pass the summer quietly with his 
 wife, in the country, in the vicinity of 
 Paris. 
 
 The place which Natalie chose was 
 about an hour's journey from Paris, and 
 perhaps fifteen minutes from the railway- 
 station, a charming old house in the shadi- 
 est corner of a park, in the midst of which 
 a large castle stood empty. The castle 
 was modern ; the house, on the contrary, a 
 carefully reconstructed ruin of the time of 
 Francis First. The castle was called " Le 
 Chateau des Ormes," and the small house 
 " L'Ermitage." The last owner had re- 
 stored it, in order that his favorite daughter 
 might pass her honeymoon there. Since 
 the daughter had died the Hermitage 
 stood empty, and to reside in the castle 
 was painful to the owner. Both were to 
 let. Lensky left the choice to his wife. 
 What would she have done with the large 
 castle ? The Hermitage pleased her better. 
 The windows were all irregular, one small
 
 Asbein. 183 
 
 and narrow, another very broad, all sur- 
 rounded by artistically carved and voluted 
 stone framings. The trees grew up high 
 above the roof, and through the whole day 
 sang sweet, dreamy songs, to which a little 
 brook, that ran close by the house, fur- 
 nished a harmonic accompaniment. 
 
 The ground floor was built in accordance 
 with the architecture of the early Renais- 
 sance period, with brown beams across the 
 ceilings of the room, and artistic wainscot- 
 ing on the walls. Gigantic marble mantels, 
 iron chandeliers and sconces, and heavy 
 furniture did what they could to transport 
 the spectator's imagination back to the 
 much sung old times of gay King Francis. 
 At the right and left of the entrance door, 
 set far back in its carved niche, grew lilies, 
 tall and slender; they were in full bloom when 
 the married pair moved in, and their white 
 heads nodded in a friendly manner through 
 the windows of the rooms even with the 
 ground. Sage, lavender, and centifolias 
 bloomed at their feet, tall rose-bushes
 
 184 Asbe'in. 
 
 nodded a fragrant greeting to them from 
 above. The branches of the old trees be- 
 fore the windows were thick enough to 
 partially exclude the sunbeams if they be- 
 came too intrusive ; not thick enough to 
 completely bar the way for them. 
 
 In this lonely solitude, Natalie fought a 
 last time for her happiness. She tried to 
 make her whole home as attractive and 
 poetic as possible, so that in Lensky's re- 
 membrance something might remain for 
 which he must long. She no longer tor- 
 mented him with jealous, isolating tender- 
 ness, but cared for his distraction and in- 
 tellectual as well as artistic recreation. She 
 knew how to allure not only the first musi- 
 cians in Paris, but celebrities of the most 
 different kinds from the capital and sur- 
 rounding villas, to the Hermitage ; earnest 
 men of lofty aims and noble endeavors, to- 
 gether with an animation and susceptibility 
 which did away with the hindering respect 
 which towers between every plain, modest 
 child of man and great people. It always
 
 Asbein. 185 
 
 gave Natalie pleasure to see Lensky in the 
 company of these prominent men. He 
 grew in such surroundings. 
 
 He was never very talkative ; his intellec- 
 tual capabilities were of a heavy calibre, un- 
 suited for the purposes of small talk. But 
 how he listened, what questions he asked ! 
 Then, quite without haste, he would make 
 some remark so peculiarly sharp and far- 
 reaching in reference to some impending 
 political, artistic, or literary question, that, 
 every time, an astonished silence would 
 follow. 
 
 One of the guests once remarked : " If 
 Lensky mingles in the conversation, it is as 
 if one fired a cannon between pistol shots." 
 
 He was not one-sided in his interests, 
 as other musicians. When one learned to 
 know him more intimately, for every accu- 
 rate observer it had always the appearance 
 that his musical capabilities formed only a 
 part of his universally abnormally gifted 
 nature.
 
 1 86 Asbe'in. 
 
 Quietly and still animatedly passed the 
 days, weeks, and months. Natalie never 
 spoke of the approaching separation. 
 
 An inexplicable discomfort tormented 
 Lensky. Natalie had guessed rightly he 
 had concluded the engagement with Morin- 
 sky with quite precipitate haste, not only 
 in order thereby to win the opportunity of 
 acquiring with one stroke a large sum of 
 money which would put an end to his pe- 
 cuniary difficulties, but because in inter- 
 course with the old friends of his bachelor 
 days in : he had first significantly real- 
 ized how much he had had to restrain him- 
 self to live morally and uprightly at the 
 side of his wife ; and because his gypsy na- 
 ture, bound for years, now demanded its 
 rights. 
 
 Still it vexed him that Natalie remained 
 so calm in the face of the approaching 
 parting. Now, when the farewell drew 
 near, his heart failed him. Did she, then, 
 no longer love him ? 
 
 The thought was unbearable to him, pre-
 
 Asbe'in. 187 
 
 vented him from working. He wrote every- 
 thing wrong on the note paper. 
 
 The lilies were dead, the days became 
 short, and the first leaves fell in the grass, 
 but the foliage was still thick, only here and 
 there one saw a yellow spot in a bluish 
 green tree, and the rustling had no longer 
 the old soft sound. 
 
 " The trees have lost their voice, they 
 have become hoarse, the old melting sound 
 is gone ! " said Natalie. The roses, in truth 
 bloomed more beautifully than in summer ; 
 still one saw, significantly, the approach 
 of autumn, and Lensky had the repug- 
 nant feeling that near by something lay 
 dying. 
 
 His work did not please him. Three 
 times already he had heard Natalie pass by 
 his door; each time he had thought, now 
 she will come in ; he had already stretched 
 his arms out to her, but she did not come. 
 He threw away his pen and sprang up to 
 look for her. 
 
 It was a late September afternoon. It
 
 1 88 Asbetn. 
 
 had rained for three days, and the air was 
 cool. 
 
 Natalie sat in the brown-wainscoted 
 ground-floor sitting-room, in one of the 
 gigantic, high-backed arm-chairs near the 
 chimney, in which flickered a gay wood fire. 
 The windows were open. The noise from 
 without of the rain drops softly gliding 
 down between the leaves, the blustering of 
 the high swollen brook, mingled with the 
 crackling and popping of the burning 
 wood. 
 
 In the middle of the room, on a large 
 table with a dark-red cover, stood a copper 
 bowl filled with champagne-colored Gloire 
 de Dijon roses. From without came the 
 melancholy odor of autumnal decay and 
 mingled with the sweet breath of the 
 flowers. 
 
 The veil of twilight sank down from the 
 mighty rafters of the ceiling. The corners 
 of the large, somewhat low room were al- 
 ready, as it were, rounded off by brown 
 shadows. Freakish, pale reflections slid
 
 Asbetn. 189 
 
 over the dark wainscoting, and over the 
 brass and copper dishes which adorned it. 
 
 Little Kolia crouched on a stool before 
 his mother, and with both tiny elbows 
 rested on her lap, gazed earnestly and at- 
 tentively up at her. 
 
 One could think of nothing more charm- 
 ing than this mother and this child. In- 
 voluntarily Lensky's heart beat high in his 
 breast. " How beautiful my home is, how 
 happy I am here. Why am I really going 
 away? " he asked himself. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Natalie when he entered, 
 pleased and at the same time surprised, 
 for his appearance at this hour was some- 
 thing quite unusual. " Do you wish any- 
 thing?" 
 
 He shook his brown, defiant head silently 
 and sat down near the chimney opposite 
 her. The little boy had sprung up, embar- 
 rassed, and now leaned against his mother, 
 with his little arm round her neck. 
 
 " You have been telling him fairy tales," 
 began Lensky.
 
 190 Asbein. 
 
 " Oh, no ! I told him of the ocean, and 
 how one lives and is housed on the wide 
 boundless water of the ocean and of 
 America. Before it was too dark we were 
 busy with something much more impor- 
 tant," said Natalie, and she pointed to alow 
 child's table which was covered with writing 
 materials and lined paper. " Show papa 
 what we have finished, Nikolinka." 
 
 The little boy became very red and drew 
 his brows together. " But, mamma," said 
 he, excitedly stamping his foot, " why do 
 you tell that ? It is a surprise." 
 
 His mother stroked the offended child's 
 cheek soothingly. " We will not give papa 
 your letter to read, only show it to him, so 
 that he can be pleased with it. Bring it, 
 Nikolinka." 
 
 Resistingly the little fellow freed himself 
 from his mother, then he brought the docu- 
 ment, which was concealed behind a vase, 
 and carried it, with importance as well as 
 embarrassment, to his father. On the al- 
 ready extensively sealed envelope, between
 
 Asbe'in. 191 
 
 three lines, stood the unformed, but neatly 
 and industriously written letters : 
 
 A 
 MONSIEUR BORIS LENSKY, 
 
 EN 
 
 AMRIQUE. 
 
 " The letter is to be sent to you when 
 you are over there," explained Natalie. 
 
 " How nicely the wight writes for his five 
 years," said Lensky touched, looking at the 
 envelope. " You guided his hand, Na- 
 tascha ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " declared Natalie. 
 
 " But you prompted him?" 
 
 " Certainly not ; he thought it out all by 
 himself; did you not, Nikolinka?" said Na- 
 talie. 
 
 The. little one nodded earnestly ; he was 
 quite crimson with pride and embarrass- 
 ment. His father took him between his 
 knees, called him " Umnitza," which in 
 Russian means paragon of wisdom, kissed 
 and caressed him, then rang the bell for
 
 192 Asbe'in. 
 
 Palagea, and told him he must go now and 
 wash his hands, and have his curls brushed 
 smooth, and then he should take dinner 
 with his parents, because he had been so 
 clever. 
 
 When the child had tripped out at the 
 nurse's hand, Lensky threw himself down on 
 the stool at his wife's feet. It had now 
 become quite dark. The heavy, regular- 
 falling rain still rustled in the foliage with- 
 out, in a dreamy, melancholy cadence. 
 
 " Listen ; how sweet, how sad ! " said 
 Natalie, turning her head to the window, 
 through which the landscape, behind its 
 double veil of rain and twilight, looked to 
 one like a greenish-gray chaos only, without 
 any distinct outlines. 
 
 " The D-flat major prelude of Chopin," 
 said Lensky. 
 
 She shook her head. " No, I did not 
 think of that," whispered she. " But see ! 
 Sometimes it seems to me that the ghost 
 of the poor young wife who died here 
 creeps around the Hermitage, and sighs for
 
 Asbe'in. 193 
 
 the happiness which she might not finish 
 enjoying. She died after the first year, 
 while I, Boris I was happy six years. 
 It is too much for one human life. Some- 
 times it is a sin ; I know it and still, 
 sometimes I quite wished I might die, but I 
 dare not ; Kolia still needs me." 
 
 Soon after this she brought a little girl 
 into the world, who was baptized Marie, 
 after the grandmother and the little dead 
 sister. 
 
 A few weeks passed, she convalesced rap- 
 idly. The day of farewell came, on which 
 ever) 1 ' one hastened, with everything over- 
 hurried, incessantly imagined there was too 
 much to do in preparing for the journey, 
 and finally had nothing more to do. The 
 day on which all the usual occupations 
 were sacrificed in honor of the pain of part- 
 ing, when one aimlessly trifled away the 
 hours, tormented by nervous unrest, which 
 finally expressed itself in the dullest ennui.
 
 194 Asbetn. 
 
 They sat together ; now here, now there, 
 and did not know what to do. Lensky was 
 to take the six o'clock train to Paris ; from 
 there, the same evening, he would travel 
 with Morinsky's troupe to Boulogne, for 
 they would take ship in Liverpool for 
 America. 
 
 The dinner-hour was changed from seven 
 to four, lunch and breakfast were combined 
 at ten o'clock. These irregular hours took 
 away one's appetite, accustomed to regular 
 hours, and increased the general discomfort. 
 
 In order to kill the last half-hour before 
 dinner they took a walk through the im- 
 mense, solitary park. Kolia went with them. 
 
 It was a beautiful October day, with a 
 blue heaven over which only filmy white 
 clouds spread themselves, and from which 
 the sun looked down so sadly and mildly as 
 only the October sun looks down on the 
 dying beauty of the year. Masses of foliage 
 still hung on the trees, but it was already 
 withered it no longer lived. And in the 
 midst of the windless peace, one heard,
 
 Asbein. 195 
 
 again and again, the gentle sighing of a dead 
 leaf that fell on the turf. 
 
 Both the parents were silent, only the 
 little boy asked, from time to time, tender, 
 important questions of his father, whom he 
 loved very much, although he felt a kind of 
 shyness of him. At first Lensky led the 
 child by the hand, then he took him in his 
 arms, in order to have the pleasure of hold- 
 ing the supple little body quite closely to 
 him and feel the soft, warm little arms 
 round his neck. 
 
 They hurried back to the house so as not 
 to delay dinner, and naturally arrived much 
 too early. 
 
 " Play me something for a farewell," 
 begged Natalie. 
 
 " One of the Chopin nocturnes which I 
 transposed for your sake?" asked he. 
 
 " No, just what you have in your heart," 
 replied Natalie. 
 
 He took up his violin. It was the same 
 violin which he had tried in the Palazzo 
 Morsini, the Amati which Natalie had given
 
 196 Asbc'in. 
 
 him when they were betrothed. He was very 
 excited, and became paler with every stroke. 
 
 The whole desperation of a great nature 
 which feels an unavoidable degradation ap- 
 proaching, spoke from his improvisation, and 
 in the midst of the passionate and painful 
 madness rose melodies so pure, so beauti- 
 fully holy, like the resting in heart-felt 
 prayer of a nature all in uproar. 
 
 When he had finished and wished to put 
 the violin back in the case in which he 
 should take it with him to America, Natalie 
 took it from his hand. 
 
 "What do you wish with it?" he asked. 
 
 She kissed the violin and then handed it 
 to him. " Here you have it," said she, very 
 softly. " It will never sing so again until 
 you return." 
 
 At last the servant announced that dinner 
 was served. They sat down to the execu- 
 tioner meal, the executioner meal for which 
 all his little favorite dishes had been pre- 
 pared, at which everything was so abundant 
 and so good, only the appetite was lacking.
 
 Asbe'in. 197 
 
 It was still light when they went to din- 
 ner. The light slowly died in the course 
 of the meal. The words fell seldomer 
 and more seldom from Lensky's lips; there 
 was a leaden silence ; the brook sobbed 
 without. 
 
 Lensky held his wine-glass toward Nata- 
 lie. " To a happy meeting ! " said he ; " to 
 a happy meeting!" She repeated, dully: 
 " I will await you here next year when the 
 roses bloom." He pressed her hand ; he 
 could not contain himself during the whole 
 meal, but got up before the dessert and 
 began to walk up and down restlessly. 
 
 " You have still time," Natalie assured 
 him ; " the coffee will come immediately." 
 
 " Thanks ; is baby asleep ? I would like 
 to give her a kiss before I go." 
 
 They brought little Maschenka. He kissed 
 and blessed the tiny, rosy child, bundled up 
 in lace and muslin. He has kissed Kolia, 
 loudly crying from excitement, and commis- 
 sioned him to be brave and not to grieve his 
 mother.
 
 198 Asbein. 
 
 Now he goes up to his wife. They have 
 brought the lamps ; he wishes to see her 
 distinctly before he goes. She tries to 
 smile ; she raises her arms to stretch them 
 out to him the arms sink. 
 
 " My heart, be reasonable," says he, and 
 draws her to him. A fearful groan comes 
 from her lips ; she presses her mouth against 
 his shoulder so as not to scream aloud ; her 
 form shook. 
 
 He held her to him so tightly that she 
 could scarcely breathe. For one moment 
 he is all hers it is the last in her life ! 
 She knows it ! The happiness of her love 
 rallies once more in a feeling of awful, 
 delirious happiness, and dies in a kiss ! 
 
 Now he has gone ! She accompanied him 
 to the house-door. There she now stands 
 and gazes along the street, through the 
 twilight, where he has disappeared between 
 the trees. It did not seem to her that she 
 had parted from a dear man who was about 
 to make a journey. No ; as if they had 
 carried a corpse out of the house. It is all
 
 Asbein. 199 
 
 over all ! Whatever further comes is only 
 more dry bitterness and inconsolable tor- 
 ment of the heart. She sees his footprints 
 in the half darkness. Why had she not 
 accompanied him to the railway? she asks 
 herself, why why? From stupid anxiety, 
 from pride of giving the few loafers at the 
 station the sight of her despair had she 
 renounced the pleasure of enjoying his 
 presence until the last moment ? She steps 
 outdoors, hurries her steps, wishes to hurry 
 after him, to see him once more, only one 
 moment then the loud voice of the rail- 
 road bell breaks the universal silence a 
 shrill whistle it is over ! She falls down, 
 buries her face in the cool autumn grass at 
 the edge of the garden path, and sobs as 
 one sobs over a fresh grave. 
 
 About three hours later, Lensky, with 
 his' colleagues and Morinsky, sat penned up 
 in a coup of the first class. The train was 
 over-full, there were eight of them in the 
 small compartment.
 
 2OO Asbe'in. 
 
 In one corner slept Morinsky, his fur 
 collar drawn up over his ears, his head 
 covered with a fez, whose blue tassel 
 waved to and fro over his left ear, which 
 lent his sharp yellow face a diabolical ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Opposite him sat an old woman with a 
 copper colored skin, and held a basket of 
 lunch on her knees. At first she had un- 
 interruptedly chewed and smacked her lips, 
 now she snored. She was the mother of 
 a famous staccato singer, who, large and 
 blond, with her head and shoulders pru- 
 dently wrapped in a red fascinator, embroid- 
 ered with gold, and painted, and smelling 
 of cosmetics, coquetted with the 'cellist, a 
 very effeminate young man who looked 
 like an actor. They had spread a shawl 
 over their knees, and the diva laid the 
 cards for him, which gave occasion for the 
 most entertaining allusions. 
 
 The accompanist of the troupe, a pedan- 
 tic young pianist, afflicted with a chronic 
 hoarseness, which alone prevented him
 
 Asbe'in. 201 
 
 from becoming a tenor of the first rank, 
 formed the public to the beautiful duet, 
 while he laughed loudly at every particu- 
 larly poor witticism. 
 
 The 'cellist and the diva were very famil- 
 iar with each other, and both constantly 
 made use of expressions of the commonest 
 kind. 
 
 The laughter of the diva became ever 
 shriller, while that of the 'cellist sounded 
 ever deeper from his boots. 
 
 Opposite Lensky, the short-armed, fat 
 piano virtuoso of the troupe, a very solid 
 father of a family, who tried to sleep, and 
 from time to time looked round angrily at 
 the disturbers of his rest ; and near Lensky, 
 wrapped in furs to the tip of her nose, sat 
 a new prima donna, Signora Zingarelli, of 
 whom Morinsky promised himself the high- 
 est success, a beautiful, red-haired Belgian, 
 with long, narrow sphinx eyes. She had 
 tried to enter into conversation with Len- 
 sky, but he had turned from her, mono- 
 syllabic and coarse.
 
 2O2 Asbe'in. 
 
 The train sighed and groaned. Fiery 
 clouds flew by the window in the black 
 night. The close atmosphere in the coupe, 
 the odor of paint, musk, fat meat, hot fur 
 and coal, maddened Lensky ; he wished to 
 open one of the windows the singers pro- 
 tested, Morinsky awoke, settled the dis- 
 pute : the window remained closed. 
 
 A terrible longing for his love, for his 
 beautiful, poetic home, came over Lensky. 
 He thought of his last night journey, with 
 wife and child, quite alone in a coupe. He 
 saw the charming serpentine lines which 
 the slender, supple figure of his young wife 
 described on the cushions. She slept. Her 
 little head rested on a red silk cushion 
 which she took about with her on all her 
 travels. How tender and delicate her pro- 
 file stood out from that colored ground! 
 She coughed in her sleep ; he stood up to 
 draw the fur mantle which covered her 
 closer up around her shoulders. Drunk 
 with sleep, she opened her eyes and with 
 half unconscious tenderness rubbed her
 
 Asbe'in. 203 
 
 smooth, cool cheeks against her hand. The 
 sweet fragrance of violets which exhaled 
 from her person smote his face. Then 
 a jolt ! He started up he must have 
 slept. In any case he had dreamed. His 
 travelling companions all slept now ; their 
 heads on their breasts, only the pretty red- 
 haired head of the Zingarelli lay on Len- 
 sky's shoulder. She opened her long, nar- 
 row eyes, smiled at him a shrill whistle 
 the train stopped. 
 
 " Amiens ! " cried the conductor. " Am- 
 iens ! " All got out. 
 
 While his colleagues plundered the res- 
 taurant, Lensky, smoking a cigarette, wan- 
 dered around the platform alone. The 
 others had all taken their places again, 
 when Morinsky, who had gotten out to 
 look for him, and saw him wandering to 
 another coupe", called after him : " Here, 
 Monsieur Lensky, here ! " 
 
 But Lensky only stamped his foot im- 
 patiently : " Leave me in peace, I am not 
 obliged to make the whole journey in the
 
 2O4 Asbe'in. 
 
 same cage with your menagerie ! " he 
 said. 
 
 Six weeks later not a trace of his home- 
 sickness remained. At the artist banquet, 
 which usually followed the concerts, sym- 
 posiums which began with bad witticisms 
 and ended with an orgy, he was the most 
 unrestrained, the wantonest of all. 
 
 He was like one who, suddenly relieved 
 from the pressure of iron fetters, at first, 
 unaccustomed to every free movement, can 
 scarcely move his limbs, but afterward can- 
 not weary of stretching them, and moving 
 them in unlimited freedom. 
 
 He broke every bond, indulged every 
 humor. He no longer thought of Natalie 
 and the children, he did not wish to think 
 of them. Remembrance was ashamed to 
 follow him on the way he now went. 
 
 It was hard for him to write to his wife, 
 but it was still harder for him to read her 
 letters. And yet she wrote so charmingly, 
 so lovingly ! She did not say much of her-
 
 Asbein. 205 
 
 self, but so much the more of the children, 
 especially of Kolia. With what shining 
 eyes he listened, when she read the reports 
 of the triumphs of his father to him, she 
 wrote, and how he seized every newspaper 
 that he saw, and then asked her : " Is there 
 anything in it about papa? " and how, with 
 his little playmates she passed the winter 
 with her mother, in Cannes he boasted im- 
 portantly of the homage which fell share 
 to his father, and how she did not have the 
 heart to reprove him for it. How he drew 
 ships incessantly, and how she made use of 
 the interest which he took in his father's 
 journey to give him his first lessons in geog- 
 raphy, and many other such tender trifles. 
 
 These letters vexed him ; when he had 
 read them, he despised himself and his sur- 
 roundings, and for two, three days, remained 
 melancholy and unsociable. 
 
 At last he no longer read them, at most 
 only glanced over them, convinced himself 
 hastily that " all was as usual," and then 
 folded them up and laid them aside.
 
 206 Asbein. 
 
 Then came the time when he told himself 
 it was foolish to have such scruples. He 
 was what he always had been, an excep- 
 tional man, a Titanic nature. He could not 
 be judged like the others, he could not have 
 exercised his compelling charm over the 
 masses without the fiery violence of his 
 temperament. His success was wonderful. 
 Since they had celebrated the reception of 
 Jenny Lind with discharge of cannon in 
 New York or Boston history differs as to 
 which, is always careless in relation to prima 
 donnas no artist had received more hom- 
 age than Boris Lensky. The women espe- 
 cially seemed as if bewitched by him. 
 
 He did not take the situation sentiment- 
 ally, but rather cynically ; still he accus- 
 tomed himself to the horrible noise of the 
 public, which followed his performances, to 
 the cries of the crowd which accompanied 
 him without, when he left the concert hall, 
 to the illuminated streets in which every 
 window was filled with gazers when he 
 drove home.
 
 Asbein. 207 
 
 When the excitement was once over, a 
 kind of shame overpowered him. What 
 signified these virtuoso triumphs ? People 
 always applauded the stupidest piece the 
 loudest. He attained no such effect with a 
 sonata of Beethoven, or Schumann, as with 
 a mad tarentella which he had composed 
 long ago for his wonderful fingers, and of 
 which he was now ashamed. 
 
 In Boston, he omitted this tarentella, 
 which had become a nightmare to him, 
 from the programme. 
 
 The people remained lukewarm, and so 
 much already did his over-excited nerves 
 desire the shrill storm of applause, that he 
 voluntarily added the trivial and wearying 
 piece of artifice he, who had formerly so 
 despised his virtuoso triumphs! 
 
 The lilies stand straight and slender, with 
 golden hearts in their deep, white calices, 
 right and left of the door of the little Her- 
 mitage, into which Natalie has again moved 
 when the first roses bloom.
 
 208 Asbein. 
 
 It is July. Lensky has fixed his return 
 for the fifteenth. " Afternoon, with the first 
 train that I can catch ; but do not worry if 
 I should be late," said his letter. 
 
 Not at the station, no, only to the hedge 
 which incloses the park, will Natalie go to 
 meet him. 
 
 Kolia quivers with impatience. Natalie 
 counts the hours, draws out her watch it 
 has stopped. She hurries in the dining-room 
 to consult the clock on the mantel, and dis- 
 covers Kolia, who, kneeling on a chair, 
 moves the hands. 
 
 "What are you doing?" says she, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 The boy sighs impatiently. " I am fixing 
 the clock, mamma. I am sure it must be 
 sick, it goes too slowly to-day." 
 
 How she kisses him for it ! How pleased 
 she will be to tell Boris of it ! 
 
 " Hark ! " 
 
 A shrill sound of a bell, a penetrating 
 whistle ; the train has come. 
 
 She fetches her little daughter, who has
 
 Asbe'tn. 209 
 
 had a charming little white dress put on 
 her, in honor of her father's arrival. 
 
 With the little one on her arm, and Kolia 
 at her hand, she steps out under the lindens, 
 which are in full bloom, and throw a sunlit 
 shadowy carpet over the path. Oh, how her 
 poor heart beats ! She kisses the tiny hands 
 of her little daughter from excitement, looks 
 scrutinizingly at the little child. Will he 
 think her pretty? 
 
 She stands at the hedge of the park, looks 
 out on the street, gazes, waits, sees the peo- 
 ple return from the railroad. Now he must 
 come ! but no, the white, dusty street 
 is empty ; a scornfully whispering breeze 
 blows away the footprints of the last 
 passer-by, a couple of white linden-blos- 
 soms fall from the tree-tops he has not 
 come ! 
 
 And with slow steps, as one wearily drags 
 himself along after a great disappointment, 
 she turns toward the house. Kolia gives 
 a deep sigh. " I don't understand it, 
 mamma," says he. 
 14
 
 2io Asbein. 
 
 " Papa will come with the next train ; he 
 has missed this one," his mother consoles 
 him. 
 
 For a while he trips silently beside her, 
 then suddenly raising his head and looking 
 at her with his earnest, thoughtful child's 
 eyes, he says : 
 
 " We would not have missed the train, 
 would we, mamma? " 
 
 And once more the bell sounds in the 
 solemn quiet, and Natalie's heart beats 
 loudly and he comes not. 
 
 Ever sadder, she wanders through the 
 empty rooms, into which the sunlight 
 presses through a shady, cool, perfumed cur- 
 tain of foliage. 
 
 " How can one stay an hour longer than 
 one must in the sultry, dusty, sunny, 
 wearying Paris ? " she asks herself. 
 
 Meanwhile Lensky sits with his col- 
 leagues in the Trots Freres at a breakfast 
 which began at one o'clock, and now at five 
 o'clock has not yet ended. A breakfast at
 
 Asbe'in. 2 1 1 
 
 which all laugh and make jokes only he 
 broods silently. 
 
 He is satiated with this rope-dancer's 
 existence heartily satiated he longs for 
 his home, for his dear, incomparable wife, 
 but he delays the moment of meeting as 
 long as he can. A kind of shame contracts 
 his throat at the thought of meeting her 
 eyes. He knows she will ask him no ques- 
 tions, but still 
 
 Once more the railway bell has in vain 
 startled Natalie and her little son. Even- 
 ing has come. The excellent little dinner 
 which was prepared in honor of the return 
 has been served and taken away quite 
 untouched. Kolia incessantly pulls his 
 mother's sleeve and asks ever more impor- 
 tunately: "Why does not father come? 
 Why does he not come ? " 
 
 Maschenka has long been divested of her 
 white muslin finery, and lies in her cradle. 
 Kolia obstinately refuses to go to bed until 
 his father has returned. Weary and tearful
 
 212 Asbein. 
 
 he wanders from one corner of the drawing- 
 room to the other and will not play. 
 
 Now, with little head on his arm, he has 
 fallen asleep over his picture books at a low 
 child's table. 
 
 The roses which Natalie arranged so care- 
 fully in the vases wither. The white dra- 
 peries of her dress are limp and tumbled. 
 
 Once again the bell rings. It is the last 
 train to-day. She does not wake Kolia. 
 Why should he uselessly vex himself this 
 time also ? 
 
 Softly she steps on the porch. The 
 moon stands in the heavens ; the trees 'are 
 black. A gray, transparent mist arises 
 from the earth which obliterates all con- 
 tours. The flowers smell unusually sweet, 
 and, in luxuriant melancholy, confess so 
 much to the pale, cold moon that they have 
 shamefacedly been silent about to the sun. 
 
 Why does the little brook sob so loudly? 
 Can it not be silent a moment? Natalie's 
 whole being is now only a strained, longing 
 listening. Why does her heart beat so
 
 Asbe'tn. 213 
 
 loudly? Why does her strong imagination 
 charm up things in the stillness which do 
 not exist ? Or no no ; she hears a sigh, 
 a step, slow, slow ! Who can that be ? No 
 man walks so slowly who after long, oh, 
 how long absence, returns to wife and child ! 
 It is a messenger of misfortune, who delays 
 to announce some ill news to her. 
 
 Then, from out the shadow, in the foggy 
 moonlight, comes a broad-shouldered form. 
 
 " Boris ! " calls Natalie, half to herself. 
 She cannot go to meet him she cannot. 
 Trembling in her whole body, she stands 
 there, in the carved Gothic portal, against 
 the bright golden background of the lighted 
 hall ; stands there in her white dress, be- 
 tween the tall, pale lilies, like an angel be- 
 fore the door of a church, into which a 
 wicked sinner would like to slip. 
 
 " Is it you, at last?" she breathes out. 
 
 " Yes ; I am somewhat late. You know, 
 with one's colleagues, one must offend no 
 one ; it is always so." 
 
 How rough his voice sounds! How fleet-
 
 214 Asbe'in. 
 
 ingly, how hastily he kisses her. Is she 
 dreaming? 
 
 " How are you ; how are the children ? " 
 He steps in the hall, blinking uneasily in 
 the light. 
 
 Is this really the man to whose coming 
 she has so foolishly, so breathlessly looked 
 forward ? This irritable, heavy man with 
 the tumbled clothes, the badly arranged 
 hair, the fearfully altered face, with a new 
 expression of God knows what ! Her feet 
 refuse her their service ; she catches hold of 
 a support, and sinks down in a chair. 
 
 " How pale you are, Natalie ! " says he. 
 " Are you ill ? " 
 
 " No no only I have waited for you 
 since five o'clock. I I thought you would 
 never find the way back to us." 
 
 For an instant he hesitates ; then he 
 sinks at her feet, embraces her knees with 
 both arms. He, who at parting had not 
 shed a tear, now, at their meeting, sobs like 
 a desperate one. What pretext, what false- 
 hood can he utter? As if his colleagues
 
 Asbe'in. 2 1 5 
 
 could have withheld him if he had only 
 really wished to come home ! 
 
 " O Natalie ! Natalie ! Pardon me. We 
 all fear to return to Heaven when we have 
 accustomed ourselves to Earth. Natalie ! 
 be good to me; never let me leave you 
 again." 
 
 He had plunged a dagger in her heart, 
 but her whole tenderness is awakened. 
 
 She bends over him, strokes his rough 
 hair with her tender, white hand. "My 
 poor genius ! " she whispers gently. " My 
 poor, dear genius ! " 
 
 " Papa ! " calls a silvery voice, joyfully. 
 "Pa pal" he repeats, hesitatingly, fright- 
 ened. Kolia has run up. 
 
 If he lives to be a hundred years old he 
 will never forget how he saw his father sob- 
 bing at his mother's feet after the first long 
 separation. 
 
 Then he did not understand, but later he 
 understood understood only too well. 
 
 How sad life is : how sad !
 
 216 Asbcin. 
 
 It was the morning after his arrival. Len- 
 sky stood at the window of his room, and 
 looked down in the quiet garden. The little 
 brook which tumbled down the hill at the 
 side of the Hermitage with exaggerated vio- 
 lence, quite like a little waterfall, in front 
 of the house from whence Lensky looked 
 down on it, plashed quite calmly, earnestly, 
 and dreamily along its here scarcely sus- 
 ceptibly descending bed, and bore away on 
 its dark waves only as much of the sunshine 
 as could reach it between the lindens. A 
 cool breeze rose from the water, all around 
 was dark green, dewy and luxuriant lux- 
 uriant without the slightest indication of 
 decay, without the least trace of approach- 
 ing withering. 
 
 And what an abundance of roses stood 
 out in gay, blooming colors against the 
 sober, dark-green background ! Great Mare'- 
 chal Niel roses, with heavy, earthward-bent 
 heads, dark-red Jacqueminot, fiery Baroness 
 Rothschild, delicate pink, capriciously crum- 
 pled La France. The Gloire de Dijon roses
 
 Asbem. 217 
 
 climbed quite in the window of his room in 
 their race with the quite small, pert little 
 running roses. 
 
 Light steps crunched the gravel, large and 
 small steps. Natalie stepped out from the 
 shady lindens in front of the house. She 
 held her little daughter in her arms. Kolia 
 walked near her, and with the important 
 earnestness of six years carried a basket- 
 ful of strawberries, which he had evidently 
 just helped his mother pick. One could 
 think of nothing more charming than the 
 young woman in her white morning-dress, 
 with its lilac ribbons, and the tiny, rosy be- 
 ing in her arms. The little thing was bare- 
 headed, and her little arms and feet were 
 also bare. She quivered and danced with 
 animation. There she discovered a butter- 
 fly, cried out gayly, and clapped her little 
 hands. 
 
 " Oh, are you ready so soon ? " called Nat- 
 alie, when she saw her husband at the win- 
 dow. " Come to breakfast ; 1 have had the 
 table laid in the garden."
 
 218 Asbe'in. 
 
 He hurried down. The breakfast-table 
 stood in a shady spot, over which the bloom- 
 ing lindens reached their branches. 
 
 Oh, what a table ! How very pretty the 
 Rouen service made it! a service whose 
 old-fashioned gayness combined harmoni- 
 ously the most incongruous colors, set out 
 on the dazzling white damask table-cloth. 
 How inviting and appetizing everything 
 was ! These curiously shaped dishes, with 
 their fragrant burden of still warm golden 
 cakes and rolls of pale yellow butter be- 
 tween glittering pieces of ice, and ham cov- 
 ered with transparent aspic ! Around the 
 greenish twilight, fragrant, cool, only here 
 and there the reddish glimmer of a sun- 
 beam curiously wandered into the shadow, 
 and now held captive by the lindens. 
 
 When she saw her father coming, little 
 Mascha became quite unruly, almost danced 
 out of her mother's arms, and, without re- 
 sisting, let herself be taken, hugged, and 
 kissed by him. While he held her in his 
 arms, Kolia seized her little bare legs,
 
 Asbe'in. 219 
 
 and pressed his mouth to her tiny pink 
 feet. 
 
 " She is charming, a beauty ! Is that 
 really my daughter, can something so won- 
 derfully pretty have such an ugly man for 
 father ? " he said from time to time, 
 laughingly, tenderly, while he kissed her 
 bare shoulders, and especially the dimple in 
 her neck, again and again. 
 
 " She looks very like you, your pretty 
 daughter," jested Natalie. " More than the 
 boy ! It vexes him if I say that, and I also 
 would prefer it to be the other way." 
 
 Lensky laughed somewhat constrainedly. 
 The nurse came up to get baby. 
 
 " Just a moment," said Lensky, swinging 
 the little thing high in the air, to its great 
 delight, " so and one more kiss on the 
 eyes, the neck, on these dear, sweet little 
 hands, so " 
 
 The nurse already had the little thing in 
 her arms, when the sweet little rogue looked 
 round at her father. 
 
 Meanwhile, Natalie busied herself with
 
 22O Asbein. 
 
 the samovar, which stood on a small stand 
 near the breakfast table. No servant was 
 near, Kolia helped mamma serve tea, and 
 waited with a sober expression until his 
 mother had confided the cup for his father 
 to him. Carefully, as if he held the Holy 
 Grail in his hands, he carried it over to 
 Lensky. Natalie sat down opposite her 
 husband, and buttered him a piece of bread. 
 
 He looked at her with a peculiarly sad, 
 touched look. " You are all much too good 
 to me," he murmured ; then he added, ten- 
 derly : " Either I had really forgotten dur- 
 ing my absence how beautiful you are, or 
 you have really gained in charm." 
 
 How awkwardly that came out ! how 
 stumblingly ! He had wished to say some- 
 thing loving to her, but he had not suc- 
 ceeded well. He felt it himself. A petu- 
 lant smile shone in her sad eyes at his well, 
 or much rather, badly put little speech. 
 Some reply trembled on her lips, then she 
 suddenly closed her lovely mouth, as if she 
 feared her husband would take what she
 
 Asbe'tn. 221 
 
 wished to say somewhat ill, and busied her- 
 self in fastening a napkin round Kolia's neck. 
 
 After a while Lensky began anew : " How 
 charming my home is. Ah, Natalie, how 
 have I renounced it all for so long ! How 
 could I exist so long without you ! " 
 
 " If you only are really pleased over your 
 return we will make no further remarks 
 about your absence," said Natalie very lov- 
 ingly, and then hesitated with embarrass- 
 ment and blushed to the roots of her 
 hair. 
 
 Breakfast took its course. Here and 
 there, by turns, Natalie and Lensky made a 
 remark, but the conversation did not be- 
 come fluent. A strange irritation vibrated 
 in every nerve of the virtuoso. Formerly 
 there had been no end of talking between 
 them, and now What was she thinking 
 of, to speak about the weather as if he were 
 any guest to whom one feels obliged to be 
 polite, and to whom one does not know 
 what to say, because no common interest 
 unites him with us?
 
 222 Asbe'in. 
 
 He remembered the words which she had 
 spoken in the Hotel Windsor at that time 
 before the conclusion of his contract with 
 Morinsky : " As a stranger you will return 
 to us, and a stranger you will remain among 
 us from that time." 
 
 Was she right ? Foolishness ! She had 
 only become a little too distinguished 
 among the wearisome crowd with whom 
 she had passed the winter. The forced 
 mood which reigned between them was her 
 fault, not his. 
 
 " You are so stiff and formal, Natalie," he 
 remarked at last, vexedly, quite irrelevantly. 
 " You have again accustomed yourself to 
 such fearfully aristocratic manners." 
 
 " How can you say anything so foolish ? " 
 she answered him, laughing constrainedly. 
 
 " Oh, it is not laughable to me," he 
 growled, and suddenly, without any reason, 
 only to air his inward uneasiness, he burst 
 out : " It is painful to me, I cannot endure 
 it cannot bear it." He pushed his cup 
 away with an involuntary motion.
 
 Asbe'tn. 223 
 
 " But, Boris ! " Natalie admonished him. 
 "My poor, unaccountable, dear genius!" 
 She looked at him so roguishly therewith 
 that his anger was scattered to the four 
 winds. 
 
 He stretched out both his hands to her 
 across the table ; she took them. He bent 
 somewhat forward, wished to draw her 
 hands to his lips, when a light step was 
 heard on the gravel. Natalie blushed, and 
 with a quick, almost frightened movement, 
 drew them away from him. He scowled 
 angrily. Before whom was she embarrassed 
 then? 
 
 A young woman in a very elegant negligt 
 costume, profusely trimmed with Valen- 
 ciennes lace, without hat, and a yellow par- 
 asol in her hand, stepped up to the breakfast 
 table. She resembled Natalie, although she 
 was smaller, stouter, and the features of her 
 pretty face were coarser. Lensky recog- 
 nized in her his wife's sister, Princess Jelia- 
 gin, a person whom he detested from the 
 bottom of his heart, even if he had until
 
 224 Asbe'in. 
 
 now only known her slightly, before his 
 marriage with Natalie. Kind friends had 
 told him that she had described his alliance 
 with her sister as une chose absurde. Wife of 
 a rich, quite incompetent diplomat, she had 
 during her ten years' life in foreign coun- 
 tries made all the most absurd aristocratic 
 prejudices her own, and was always ad- 
 dressed as " Princess," although her hus- 
 band had no title. With all these Western- 
 Europe grimaces she combined something 
 of her Russian, half Asiatic exaggeration, 
 by which she became still more grotesque 
 and tactless. In spite of her boasted ex- 
 clusiveness she had never quite learned to 
 understand the shades of foreign society, 
 and made frequent mistakes in her choice 
 of acquaintances. 
 
 Besides this, with all her weaknesses and 
 affectations, she was good natured to silli- 
 ness, and hospitable to prodigality. 
 
 " So early in the morning, Barbe what a 
 surprise!" Natalie called to her, while she 
 tried not to let it be perceived how inoppor-
 
 A she in. 225 
 
 tune her sister's visit was to her just at 
 that moment. " That is charming, I must 
 introduce my husband to you." 
 
 " We know each other already, at least I 
 hope that Boris Nikolaivitch remembers me 
 once in St. Petersburg, at the Olins. In 
 any case, I am very happy to renew the ac- 
 quaintance," remarked the Jeliagin, and at 
 once reached him her fat little hand, in a 
 buckskin garden glove. Her voice was gut- 
 tural and rough, her whole face, as Lensky 
 could now see plainly, was painted. 
 
 "How are you, Nikolas?" She turned 
 to little Kolia, while she stroked his head in 
 a friendly manner. " Please greet a person, 
 or have I fallen as deeply in your displeas- 
 ure as my Anna? I assure you that I can- 
 not help it if she talks foolishly. Only 
 think, Boris Nikolaivitch, he cudgelled my 
 daughter Anna, day before yesterday, be- 
 cause she ventured to assert that a prince 
 was greater than a genius. He answered 
 her that not even an emperor was greater. 
 A genius came next to the dear God, and 
 15
 
 226 Asbe'in. 
 
 as she would not agree to that, he struck 
 her, and hard." 
 
 The Jeliagin laughed. Lensky also 
 laughed involuntarily, but remarked in a 
 tone of admonition to his son, who had 
 shyly concealed himself behind his mother: 
 " A boy should never strike a girl ; that is 
 not proper." 
 
 " But why did she say such foolish things?" 
 little Nikolas defended himself, while he 
 wrinkled his small forehead. " I cannot 
 bear that, and then she is larger than 
 l r so much " he measured the width of his 
 hand above his head. 
 
 " She gave him quite a scratch, she was 
 not defenceless," said Barbara Alexandrov- 
 na, while she sat down and closed her um- 
 brella. " But to come to something more 
 interesting," she continued; "we have, in 
 spirit, followed you on every step of your 
 American triumphal march, Boris Nikolai- 
 vitch ; the newspapers gave us the guide 
 thereto. I hope we will now see very much 
 of you. Natascha can tell you how well all
 
 Asbe'in. 227 
 
 artists are received at our house, and h'm ! 
 and if it is a question of a relation h 
 propos, could you not come and dine with 
 us this evening? We are quite entre nous, 
 only Lis, Princess Zriny, that eccentric 
 Hungarian, Marinia Lowenskiold, a good 
 friend of yours, you remember her, a few 
 diplomats, etc. ; and we are bored as only 
 gens du monde are bored if they have been 
 together under the same roof for ten days. 
 Natalie can tell you how bored we are 
 merely people from our coterie, who know 
 each other by heart ; if you please. And 
 how stupid we are ! ha, ha, ha ! In despera- 
 tion we arranged a race in the drawing-room 
 yesterday. Arthur de Blincourt, while 
 jumping a barrier, dislocated a joint, and 
 now lies on a lounge, and lets himself be 
 looked after. But we all long for a new 
 element on vous attend comme le Messie, 
 Boris Nikolaivitch. You will come, will 
 you not? We dine at eight o'clock." 
 
 While she chattered on with self-sat- 
 isfied fluency, it seemed to Boris as if
 
 228 Asbe'in. 
 
 some one scratched a knife on a porcelain 
 plate. 
 
 '"Why does she roll her eyes so inces- 
 santly when she speaks ? They do not look 
 more beautiful when one sees so much of 
 their orange-yellow whites," he thought to 
 himself. Aloud he only remarked : " Do 
 you really believe that I would amuse you 
 better than a drawing-room race?" 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed she. " That is 
 splendid ! I must repeat it to Marinia 
 Lowenskiold, who raves about you. You 
 will come, will you not ?" 
 
 " No, I will not come," replied he sharp- 
 ly. " I do not feel myself equal to the task 
 of amusing a dozen gens du monde who 
 are bored." 
 
 " Well, as you will," said the Jeliagin, 
 shrugging her shoulders. " Try to persuade 
 him before evening, Natalie, and come, or 
 send me word. I must go, we wish to ride 
 out en bande, at eight. Adieu ! Give me 
 your hand, please, Kolia, and come and 
 lunch with us. Anna will be pleased, and
 
 Asbe'in. 229 
 
 you shall have strawberries and whipped 
 cream. Adieu ! " _With that she went 
 away. 
 
 Lensky stared gloomily before him for a 
 while, then he struck his clenched fist on 
 the table so that all the dishes rattled : 
 " From whence did this goose drop down so 
 suddenly ? " asked he. 
 
 " She lives in the castle in the park," 
 said Natalie. " She has hired it for the 
 summer." 
 
 " So ! " grumbled Lensky. " Now if I 
 had known that, I should never have 
 thought of coming here." 
 
 " But I wrote you of it." 
 
 " Not a word." 
 
 " Certainly, in many letters ; did you not 
 have time to read them ? " 
 
 Instead of replying to this, for him very 
 unpleasant remark, Lensky said, in increas- 
 ing rage : " Oh ! now I understand the 
 change which has taken place in you. She 
 is horrible, your sister ! For what does she 
 hold me, that she takes this tone with me ? "
 
 230 Asbe'in. 
 
 " I cannot help her lack of tact," replied 
 Natalie, gently and reproachfully. 
 
 "Ah, you are still influenced by your 
 relations, by that narrow stupid crowd," 
 he growled, crimson with rage. " You are 
 condescending to me, yes, that is the right 
 word, condescending, indulgent. Why do 
 you start back from me when this silly ma- 
 chine comes near? Are you then ashamed 
 of our love before her? " 
 
 " Our love ! " repeated Natalie, with 
 broken voice, strangely emphasizing the 
 word " our." 
 
 He did not suspect anything from the 
 trembling sadness of her voice, and did not 
 once look at her. 
 
 Meanwhile he felt the anxious touch of a 
 silky, soft child's hand. Little Kolia had 
 come up to his father, and whispered to him 
 shyly and pleadingly : " Papa, mamma is 
 crying." 
 
 Lensky looked up, frightened. Yes, she 
 had done her utmost to courageously smile 
 through the unpleasant scene, but her over-
 
 Asbem. 231 
 
 excited nerves could not bear it ; she sobbed 
 convulsively. 
 
 " But Natalie, my angel, my little dove ! " 
 He could not see any woman weep, least of 
 all his wife, whom he loved. He sprang up, 
 took her in his arms, covered her eyes, her 
 mouth, her whole face with kisses. " Do 
 not torment yourself, my treasure ! You 
 are much, much too good to me ; you are 
 an angel ! How could you ever take such a 
 rough clown as I am ? We are not suited 
 to each other, Natascha." 
 
 " Oh, Boris ! do you mean that ? " 
 
 " Yes, I mean it," said he, gloomily. 
 " Better, a hundred times better, would it 
 have been for you if you had never seen 
 me ! You are so charming, so good, and I 
 love you so idolatrbusly ; but I am a fearful, 
 a horrible man, and I cannot always govern 
 myself I cannot ! I will yet torment you 
 to death, my poor Natalie!" And he did 
 not cease to caress and to kiss her. 
 
 Then she raised her head from his shoul- 
 der, and looking at him from eyes still shin-
 
 232 Asbe'in. 
 
 ing with tears, with a glance full of tender 
 fanaticism she said : " What does it mat- 
 ter, even if you kill me ? it would still be 
 beautiful ! I would change with no woman 
 in God's world, do you hear, with none ! 
 Think of what I have said to you to-day 
 when one day you give me a last kiss in my 
 coffin ! " 
 
 Lensky could no longer get back into the 
 old ways at home ; however much he tried, 
 he could not. As in the former year, only 
 more significantly, more tormentingly, the 
 feeling of growing discontent made itself 
 felt in him. It seemed to him as if he 
 could not remain for any length of time on 
 the same spot ; as if he must incessantly 
 seek something which. was no longer any- 
 where to be found. 
 
 For a couple of days he ill-humoredly 
 stayed away from the castle, but when his 
 brother-in-law paid him a visit and repeated 
 the invitation of Barbara Alexandrovna in 
 the most polite manner, when one day, all
 
 Asbe'in. 233 
 
 the ladies staying at the castle as guests 
 had come out in a body to give him an ova- 
 tion and especially when he had become 
 immeasurably weary of the poetic monoto- 
 ny of life in the Hermitage ; he replied to 
 Natalie, when she once asked him smilingly, 
 with the intention of freeing him from his 
 own constraining obstinacy, whether he 
 thought it was really worth the trouble to 
 longer play the bear: " No! " 
 
 From that time, he passed every evening 
 in the castle. 
 
 At first Natalie had been glad that the 
 social intercourse there offered him a dis- 
 traction. But soon the evenings in " Les 
 Ormes " became a torment to her. The 
 hateful change which had taken place in 
 him during his long absence from his fami- 
 ly, that change which Natalie had predicted, 
 and by which she yet had been frightened 
 at his return, as by something quite unex- 
 pected, never became more significant than 
 during these evenings at the castle. 
 
 If, during the first years of his marriage,
 
 234 Asbe'in. 
 
 through the lovely influence of his young 
 wife, and especially through the wish to 
 satisfy, to please her in everything, he had 
 learned with quite incredible rapidity to fol- 
 low the usual social customs of the country, 
 and no longer to bear himself in the world 
 as a genius, but as any other cultivated, 
 well-bred man, he had completely forgotten 
 it during his vagabond life, or rather it had 
 become wearisome to him. 
 
 More than ever, his circle of action in a 
 drawing-room limited itself to producing 
 music and then being raved over by ladies. 
 The incessant self-bewilderment in this 
 smoke of incense how, where and when- 
 ever it might be, had become a necessity of 
 existence for him. Everything in him had 
 gone wild, even his art. 
 
 Together with a preference for perilous 
 technical artifices, challenging musical un- 
 restraint of every kind showed itself. 
 Oftener than ever he fell into those mad 
 moods in which he demanded things of his 
 poor violin which it could not perform,
 
 Asbein. 235 
 
 until it groaned and screamed as if in the 
 torments of hell, and if he had formerly com- 
 plained that he could not govern himself, 
 he now boasted of it. It was his specialty, 
 by which he was distinguished from all the 
 virtuosos of his time. And, in spite of all 
 the underlying lack of restraint and the 
 impurity, that the sense-enslaving glow of 
 his art now unfolded stronger than before, 
 there could be no doubt. Especially over 
 the feminine portion of his listeners his 
 playing exercised a quite degrading charm. 
 The triumphs which he achieved in " Les 
 Ormes " proved this. 
 
 He profited by the situation. Although 
 it would have been tiresome to him to have 
 passed a whole evening among these people 
 of the world, far removed from all his most 
 intimate interests of life, without playing, 
 he sometimes let himself be urged almost 
 to lack of taste before he took up his vio- 
 lin. It happened once that he waited until 
 a particularly crazy enthusiast presented, 
 kneeling, his violin to him.
 
 236 Asbe'in. 
 
 One of the musical ladies present sat 
 down to the piano to accompany him ; the 
 others grouped themselves as near as pos- 
 sible round him, while they anxiously tried 
 to express by their positions a kind of 
 dying-away charm. He felt the longing 
 glances of their eyes resting on him while 
 he played. He saw the beautiful heads 
 bent forward. It went to his head like a 
 stunning oppression ; he no longer knew 
 himself. But they no longer knew them- 
 selves. If in the bearing of the great ladies 
 
 who frequented his house in , in spite 
 
 of all their enthusiasm for his art, there had 
 still been a trace of patronage with refer- 
 ence to the artist, many of these beauties 
 now fawned upon him like slaves who 
 would sue for his favor. 
 
 When he had finished, no one of them 
 knew by what special insanity she should 
 over-trump the others, in order to prove to 
 him her enthusiasm. And while the music- 
 bewitched women crowded around him, to 
 beg autographs or locks of hair from him,
 
 Asbein. 237 
 
 and carefully picked out the remains of his 
 thrown-away cigarettes from the ash re- 
 ceiver, in order to keep them as relics, the 
 Jeliagin told some new guest, in an adjoin- 
 ing room, the " romance of her sister," 
 which she always concluded with the words : 
 " My poor sister ; so courted as she was ! 
 You know that she refused Prince Truhetz- 
 koi. We were inconsolable when we heard 
 of her betrothal with Lensky. He is really 
 a great genius ! " And then she sighed. 
 
 But Natalie stood on the terrace which 
 opened out of the music-room, quite alone. 
 She was happy if she could remain alone; if 
 no one came up to her to ask if she had a 
 headache, or if anything else was the mat- 
 ter. Was anything the matter with her? 
 No one could feel what she suffered, and 
 there was also no human consolation which 
 she would not have felt as an insult, how- 
 ever tenderly it was offered to her. 
 
 What were the little pin pricks which had 
 
 excited her impatience in to this 
 
 pain !
 
 238 Asbein. 
 
 Around her was the summer night, sultry 
 and still. The black shadows of the trees 
 stretched themselves in the moonlight over 
 the gray-green turf on which not a single 
 dew-drop sparkled. 
 
 Out into the stillness of the night sounded 
 a loud, harsh laugh. Natalie looked through 
 one of the flower-encircled windows into the 
 drawing-room. There sat Lensky in a cir- 
 cle of ladies. 
 
 Heated by his wearying performance, he 
 wiped the perspiration from his temples, 
 from his neck. He was relating something 
 that Natalie could not hear distinctly, but 
 which evidently seemed very droll to him, 
 and which convulsed his listeners ; they 
 exhibited a kind of comically exaggerated 
 irritation. An embarrassed smile appeared 
 on his lips, he seized the hand of the lady 
 who sat nearest to him, played with it 
 appeasingly, and drew it to his lips. This 
 was his manner of making his apologies if 
 he had said something too racy. 
 
 Natalie stepped back in the shadow. A
 
 Asbe'in. 239 
 
 desperation, which was mingled with aver- 
 sion, lay hold of her. Then, hollow, paining, 
 quenching all the pleasure of life, quite like 
 a physical discomfort, something crept over 
 her which she would not explain to herself, 
 which at no price would she have called by 
 its name jealousy. 
 
 The whole mud of his inner nature was 
 stirred up as a stream highly swollen and 
 unsettled after a wild storm, raving and 
 foaming, tumbles in its bed, and can no 
 longer find peace and rest therein. 
 
 From time to time he invited guests from 
 Paris ; sometimes they came uninvited. 
 They usually remained to luncheon only, 
 but Natalie had always time enough to be 
 alarmed at them and to wish them away. 
 They were no longer artistic celebrities 
 like those whom Natalie had charmed to 
 the " Hermitage " the year before ; no, 
 Lensky had reached that point in his career 
 when an artist only tolerates courtiers and 
 court fools about himself.
 
 240 Asbe'in. 
 
 What a motley rabble that sometimes 
 was which assembled around him artistic 
 Bohemians, freed from all social and moral 
 restraint ! 
 
 The men usually remained to luncheon. 
 Natalie did her utmost to conceal the repul- 
 sion which the bearing and manner of ex- 
 pression of the throng caused her, even 
 from her husband. But sharp-sighted as he 
 was he guessed her feelings. 
 
 At first he tried to spare her ; to keep 
 the conversation in suitable bounds as long 
 as she was present. But one day it became 
 too tiresome for him. Whether the wine 
 had gone to his head, or whether some 
 secret vexation irritated him, in any case he 
 felt the need of breaking his conventional 
 shackles. Scarcely had he given the sign 
 for excessive freedom of speech, when the 
 other men followed his lead. They laughed, 
 jested with Natalie and about her, without 
 the slightest consideration for her, as men 
 heated by wine do when they are together 
 Lensky by far the worst among them all.
 
 Asbe'in. 241 
 
 From time to time he looked at Natalie 
 challengingly and angrily. Why was she so 
 prudish ? Why was she so affected ? It was 
 laughable in a married woman of her age 
 was nothing but foolishness and affectation. 
 
 At dessert she could bear it no longer ; 
 she left the table and locked herself in her 
 room. 
 
 A kind of illness had come over her ; she 
 was near a swoon. 
 
 How painful the recollection of his rough- 
 ness was to him later she knew nothing 
 of. He was much too proud to let it be 
 noticed. On the contrary, when he was 
 with her again he acted as if he had a humor 
 of hers to pardon. 
 
 From that time Natalie no longer appeared 
 at these lunches. But in the distance she 
 heard the rattling of glasses, the laughter. 
 
 She stopped her ears and bit her teeth 
 into her lips. 
 
 With all this he became daily more out of 
 temper and discontented. 
 
 16
 
 242 Asbein. 
 
 At first his drawing-room triumphs in 
 " Les Ormes " had amused him ; gradually 
 he lost the taste for them, found everything 
 empty childish. His position in the midst 
 of this exclusive worldliness vexed him. 
 While the women threw themselves at his 
 head, he noticed a smile on the lips of the 
 men which offended him. If, even at the 
 beginning of his career, he had felt quite 
 b son aise with the ladies of the aris- 
 tocracy, he never, on the contrary, to the 
 end of his life, learned to live in har- 
 mony with the men of that rank. Their 
 treatment of him always remained objec- 
 tionable to him. True, they always met 
 him with the greatest politeness, but they 
 never treated him as their equal, and were 
 always a trifle too polite to him. If he 
 entered the smoking-room while they, with 
 hands in their pockets and cigars between 
 their teeth, confidentially talked of politics, 
 race-horses or ladies, the conversation im- 
 mediately took a more earnest tone. As 
 soon as he opened his mouth the others all
 
 Asbe'in. 243 
 
 listened in solemn silence ; then one of 
 them would leave the group, take him apart 
 from the others, and try to talk of music 
 with him. He embarrassed them and they 
 embarrassed him. 
 
 Formerly, he had taken such things quite 
 philosophically, but his sensitiveness had 
 increased in recent times. In the long 
 months which he had passed, going from 
 city to city, winning triumphs and absolute, 
 surrounded only by artists of the second 
 and third class, he had gradually begun to 
 feel himself the central point of the world. 
 But here, in spite of the insane homage of 
 the ladies, he very soon saw what a small 
 role he really played on the world's stage, 
 although he could give pleasure to so many 
 by his art. 
 
 He could still tolerate the Russians, but 
 sometimes strange diplomats came to the 
 castle. The condescending flattery of these 
 gentlemen was unbearable to him. What 
 was he really in the eyes of these empty 
 heads? he asked himself; an acrobat of the
 
 244 Asbe'in. 
 
 better sort, a man who existed merely for 
 their accursed amusement. As if music 
 were not the most beautiful of all arts, an 
 art ten times holier, more God-like than the 
 political, bungling work of these diplo- 
 mats! "Art is the most enduring in the 
 world. I am the only immortal among you 
 all ! " he said to himself. But then came 
 the question : " Yes ; am I then immortal ? 
 What have I accomplished up to this time 
 to deserve artistic immortality ? " 
 
 He only felt really happy on the days 
 when all the men were occupied in hunting, 
 and he and a handsome Spanish painter 
 with a wooden leg were the only men in a 
 circle of ten or twelve ladies, although, in 
 his heart, the unmanliness of his position 
 struck him bitterly enough. 
 
 The most charming of his admirers in 
 " Les Ormes," the one who had decidedly 
 taken the first place in his favor, was the 
 Countess Marinia Lowenskiold. As already 
 mentioned, she was a Pole, and married to
 
 Asbein. 245 
 
 a northern diplomat, from whom she lived 
 separated, & taimable. 
 
 Naturally, she was an idealist, as almost 
 all women are who have departed from the 
 usual course in life. In addition, she was 
 very musical. What was most piquant 
 about her was the fact that, in spite of the 
 separation from her husband, whom, besides, 
 no one could bear, and in spite of her peril- 
 ous coquetries, no one could say anything 
 against her which could seriously injure her 
 reputation. 
 
 Perhaps it was just this, her former 
 haughty blamelessness, which attracted 
 Lensky to her. She was very beautiful, 
 she pleased him ; and then why did they 
 say that this little Pole was invincible? He 
 would see ! 
 
 Among the guests in the castle was 
 Count Leon Pachotin. Touchingly faithful 
 to his old enthusiasm, he busied himself by 
 singling out the wife of the virtuoso on 
 every possible occasion, with the most ex- 
 aggerated homage and attentions. He was
 
 246 Asbe'in. 
 
 still a very handsome man, was rich, had 
 changed his military career, as is quite cus- 
 tomary with young cavaliers, for that of 
 diplomacy, in all appearances bid fair to 
 reach the highest honors, and was still un- 
 married. It was indescribably bitter to 
 Natalie to play the humiliating rdle which 
 had fallen to her in life, so near to him. 
 Sometimes she felt his kind blue eyes rest- 
 ing upon her in sad compassion. Then the 
 proud blood boiled within her. She col- 
 lected herself in order that nothing might 
 be noticed, and was again, so truly the charm- 
 ing, seductive, unapproachable Natalie As- 
 sanow of former days. 
 
 On a sultry evening, toward the middle 
 of August, the company in the castle was 
 unusually brilliant and numerous. The 
 men and women sat in groups here and 
 there in an immense pavilion in which, by 
 means of screens and thickets of flowers, 
 all kinds of confidential nooks were formed 
 talked, laughed, coquetted, and sipped
 
 Asbe'in. 247 
 
 the refreshments which tall servants with 
 solemn bearing and brilliant liveries pre- 
 sented. 
 
 Natalie had the consciousness this even- 
 ing of looking particularly beautiful. Pe- 
 chotin scarcely left her side. She observed 
 that the count's manner to her irritated 
 Lensky, that he looked over to her more 
 than once uneasily, and she was glad and 
 doubled her lovability to Pachotin. 
 
 Then she noticed that Boris had left the 
 pavilion. With instinctive jealousy her 
 eyes sought Countess Lowenskiold. She 
 also was missing. Natalie's blood throbbed 
 in every vein, she suddenly found Pacho- 
 tin intrusive and awkward, wished to do 
 nothing more speedily than to get rid of 
 him. 
 
 " Please see if you can get me an ice, 
 Count," she remarked. He rose obligingly. 
 Scarcely had he left her when she stepped 
 out from the pavilion on the terrace. 
 
 There was no one there, but out in the 
 park, not very far, no further than a lady
 
 248 Asbetn. 
 
 should permit herself to wander in the gar- 
 den on a beautiful summer night in the 
 company of a gentleman, she discovered 
 two figures he and she. A quite irresist- 
 ible impulse drove her to follow them, to 
 interrupt their conversation in some man- 
 ner. Already she had taken a step for- 
 ward, then, blushing for herself, she re- 
 mained standing. Had it already gone so 
 far with her that she should show herself 
 capable of a degrading, pitiful act ! She 
 stood as if rooted to the ground. The pair 
 in the park, yonder, also remained standing. 
 She saw how Lensky stamped his foot, and 
 threw back his brown head. She knew 
 this despotic, violent movement. Then it 
 seemed to her that she heard the words: 
 " pas de sens commun enfantillages!" Her 
 heart beat violently, she turned away and 
 reentered the room. Soon after, Lensky 
 joined the other guests, so did the Countess 
 Lowenskiold. It did not escape Natalie 
 that the latter entered the room by another 
 door from him. The Polish woman was
 
 Asbein. 249 
 
 deathly pale, and her lips burned with 
 fever. In Lensky's manner, on the con- 
 trary, not a trace of excitement betrayed 
 itself; he was even more lovable than 
 usual, and polite to all the ladies, and 
 without being specially urged, took up 
 his violin. 
 
 While he played, he turned away from 
 the Lowenskiold, and he charmed such 
 tones from his Amati that evening, tones 
 of such touching, painful sweetness, that 
 the most earnest men present, with the 
 women, bowed before his art. 
 
 While he played, the nervous countess 
 was seized with a fit of weeping, and left 
 the room. 
 
 A little later, Natalie and Lensky walked 
 home together through the park. The way 
 which they took was enclosed on both sides 
 by thick bushes, which almost met over 
 their heads in a transparent arch. The 
 moonbeams slid through the branches, and 
 the shadows of the leaves spread themselves 
 out like ghostly lace-work over the yel-
 
 250 Asbe'in. 
 
 low gravel. An oppressive sultriness, the 
 breathless, sticky sultriness of the old heat 
 of the day, which remained hanging in the 
 thicket, made breathing difficult. 
 
 Neither of them spoke a word. But 
 while she, holding her head very high in the 
 air, looked straight before her, his glance 
 rested ever more frequently on her. In ac- 
 cordance with the custom which ruled in 
 the castle, she wore evening dress, and, on 
 account of the heat, had let the white, gold- 
 embroidered burnous slip down a little from 
 her bare shoulders. The moonlight shone 
 on her neck. She held her little head some- 
 what averted. In vain he tried to look in 
 her eyes ; he only saw the outline of her 
 cheek, her chin, and neck ; but how charm- 
 ing all that was ! Never before, since his 
 return, had she pleased him so. It really 
 was worth the pains to only look at another 
 woman near this one. Giving way to a 
 sudden excitement, mingled with remorse, 
 he drew her to him and pressed his lips to 
 her shoulder. But she escaped his em-
 
 Asbe'in. 251 
 
 brace, not without a certain correcting 
 roughness. His arms fell loosely at his 
 sides, but he could not remove his gaze 
 from her. How high she held her head, 
 what annihilating arrogance her little mouth 
 expressed ! In his mind he saw Pachotin 
 bent over her chair, humbly intent on the 
 slightest sign of her favor. 
 
 Who knows ? perhaps she regrets, thought 
 he to himself, and a furious rage gnawed at 
 his heart. 
 
 About three days after this scene three 
 days, during which Natalie and Lensky had 
 lived together in mutual wrath, without 
 speaking a word to each other, Lensky told 
 his wife he must to-day go to Paris, in 
 order to arrange with Flaxland the publica- 
 tion of one of his works ; at the same time 
 he wished to make use of the opportunity 
 to see and hear Gounod's new opera. He 
 could, therefore, only come home the next 
 day on the five o'clock train. He said all 
 that in a very grumbling tone, did not give
 
 252 Asbein. 
 
 her a kiss for farewell, and immediately 
 went to the railroad. 
 
 She fancied him already far away, when 
 he returned again. " Have you forgotten 
 anything?" she asked him. 
 
 " Yes ; namely, I would like to know if 
 you perhaps have anything to be done in 
 Paris and then if you wish, you can come 
 with me; we will go to the opera together. 
 I will wait, as far as I am concerned, for 
 the next train, so that there will be time 
 enough for you to make ready." 
 
 If he had only said that pleasantly, 
 but he said it roughly, disagreeably, as if 
 it did not concern him at all. He had 
 offended Natalie too much recently for 
 her to agree with his first attempt at recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 " I thank you very much," she replied 
 coldly ; " you will amuse yourself much bet- 
 ter without me." 
 
 For one moment he hesitated ; then he 
 shrugged his shoulders and went. 
 
 Scarcely had he gone when Natalie was
 
 Asbein. 253 
 
 overcome with remorse for her stubbornness 
 and obstinacy. 
 
 Truly it was unwise and hateful not to 
 come to meet him, if he, proud as he was, 
 took the first step. She could have cried 
 from anger with herself. A true child, as 
 in the bottom of her heart she still was, she 
 could not cease to think of the pleasure 
 which she so petulantly had renounced. 
 How charming it would have been to pass 
 a whole day alone with him in Paris. To 
 dine in the Cafe Anglais, very quickly and 
 quite early, so as not to miss the opera, 
 but still very excellently ; she even made 
 out the menu ah ! she knew all his favorite 
 dishes so well ; then the next day they 
 would have bought all kinds of useless, 
 pretty things together. She knew, from 
 former years, how good-naturedly and pa- 
 tiently he would let himself be dragged in 
 the great bazaars. She would have bought 
 Kolia playthings and baby an embroidered 
 dress she saw the little dress before her 
 and instead of all that ah, how vexatious !
 
 254 Asbe'in. 
 
 The hours dragged slowly ; she scarcely 
 put her foot out of the house. She also 
 remained at home in the evening ; the castle 
 had really no power of attraction for her. 
 When Kolia took the place opposite her at 
 dinner, and unfolded his napkin with an im- 
 portant air, he remarked : " See, mamma, 
 now it is just like the day after papa had 
 gone away to America, only you are not so 
 sad, because you know that he is coming 
 back soon." 
 
 Natalie smiled at the child. After awhile 
 Kolia began anew : 
 
 " Mamma, shall we go to meet papa to- 
 morrow ? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 Kolia rested his little head thoughtfully 
 on his hand. 
 
 " I wonder if he will miss the train 
 again ? " said he. 
 
 In accordance with a loving agreement, 
 Natalie had formerly been the only one who 
 possessed the right to move anything in Len-
 
 Asbein. 255 
 
 sky's sanctum, and to remove the dust from 
 his writing-table. With devoted punctual- 
 ity she had always performed this task. 
 Only very recently had she been untrue to 
 this dear custom. But this time he should 
 observe, as soon as he returned, that she 
 had busied herself for him during his absence. 
 She was in an optimistic frame of mind. 
 She would no longer be angry v/ith him be- 
 cause he of late had caused her so many 
 bitter hours. He himself had not been 
 happy. He was not yet really acclima- 
 tized at home. She had known that she 
 must first win him back again after his 
 long absence. Why had she from exagger- 
 ated pride so soon crossed arms ? To re- 
 member the low expressions which he some- 
 times now made use of, and especially in 
 company with the motley crowd that came 
 over to him from Paris, this really sent the 
 blood to her cheeks but still he had scarce- 
 ly known what he said. She had needless- 
 ly irritated him by her childish prudery ; one 
 must take these great natures, always in-
 
 256 Asbe'in. 
 
 clined to exaggeration, as they were, and 
 not make them obstinate by quite uselessly 
 checking and restraining them. 
 
 Only at the thought of the Countess 
 Lowenskiold an unpleasant shudder ran 
 over her. And suddenly the thought 
 flashed through her : " What does he real- 
 ly wish in Paris ? " But almost laughingly 
 she answered herself : " As if he could wish 
 anything evil when he asked me to accom- 
 pany him ! " 
 
 After she had carefully and daintily set 
 everything to rights on the writing-table, 
 she went down in the garden to cut for it the 
 most beautiful roses which she could find. 
 
 Softly humming one of the songs which 
 he had dedicated to her as bride, she carried 
 the flowers, tastefully arranged in a vase, 
 into his room, and placed them on his writ- 
 ing-table. There she discovered in a brass 
 ash receiver a half-burned paper whicrT had 
 formerly escaped her. She looked at the 
 paper to see whether she might throw it 
 away. Her heart stood still. She read the
 
 Asbein. 257 
 
 words written in French : " O thou my 
 creator, my redeemer my ruiner broken 
 Paris." The rest of the lines were burned. 
 
 She could scarcely stand. From whom 
 were these lines? was not that the writing 
 of Countess Lowenskiold? No, no, it was 
 not possible he asked me to accompany 
 him. Yes, he asked me to accompany him. 
 She repeated it ten times, a hundred times, 
 in order to shake off from herself the convic- 
 tion that began so pitilessly to weigh down 
 upon her. She could not believe such a 
 thing, she would not. Countess Lowenski- 
 old had certainly not left " Les Ormes " ! 
 
 But, however she fights with her distrust, 
 she cannot overcome it. A thousand little 
 particulars occur to her. 
 
 The sun shines down hot and full from 
 the sapphire-blue heaven. Natalie does 
 not trouble herself about that ; straight 
 through the park she hurries, without para- 
 sol, without hat, over to the castle. She 
 will inform herself with as little risk as pos- 
 sible. There is no one at home ; the ladies 
 17
 
 258 Asbe'in. 
 
 have not yet returned from a walk. What 
 a shame ! " La princesse regrettera beau- 
 coup" remarked the maitre d' hotel, who had 
 received her in the entrance-hall. " Perhaps 
 madame will remain to lunch ; they will lay 
 a place for madame." 
 
 He is an old acquaintance, a servant 
 whom Natalie has known for years. " Oh, 
 no ; I cannot stay ; I only wished to inquire 
 after the health of the Countess Lowenski- 
 old ; she has looked so miserable of late," 
 murmured she. 
 
 " Madame la Comtesse Lowenskiold ? " 
 says the man, astonished. " Ah ! she is no 
 longer here. The poor countess left day 
 before yesterday evening, quite unexpect- 
 edly. It occurred to me that she looked 
 very badly. Did madame also notice it?" 
 
 What she stammered in answer to his 
 question she does not know. A few min- 
 utes later she hurries homeward again 
 through the park, hatless, parasolless. The 
 sun still beams down full and golden upon 
 the earth from the sapphire sky. She does
 
 Asbe'in. 259 
 
 not feel the burning of the sun, and does 
 not see that the sky is blue. For her the 
 sun is dead and the sky black. It seems to 
 her that . it sinks slowly down upon her, 
 heavy and breath-robbing, like a sultry, 
 bruising weight. 
 
 " He wished to take me with him," she 
 still repeats, as if the words held consola- 
 tion ; " yes, he wished to take me with 
 him." Then she remembers the embar- 
 rassed, uneasy expression which his face 
 wore when he returned at the last minute 
 to ask her to accompany him. Evidently 
 he had had a fit of remorse. 
 
 " I could have prevented it," she mur- 
 mured, with hollow voice. Then she shook 
 in her whole body with rage and horror. 
 
 About this time, gloomily looking before 
 him, Lensky went through the Rue de la 
 Paix. He did not know why he went along 
 this street rather than another. It was 
 quite indifferent to him where he was ; he 
 only wished to kill time. A furious anger
 
 260 Asbein. 
 
 with himself shook him ; at the same time 
 disgust tormented him. It was always the 
 same; one woman was just like the others. 
 The only one who was different was his 
 own wife ; and he well, he had taken the 
 first slight opportunity to insult her. 
 
 He came by the hotel in which he had 
 lived with her the former year. He hast- 
 ened his steps. From a jeweller's shop the 
 most wonderful jewels sparkled at him. He 
 entered. He would take something to 
 Natalie ; would give her a little pleasure. 
 He purchased a pretty pin set with emer- 
 alds. She had a preference for emeralds. 
 Scarcely had he left the shop when it 
 seemed to him that the little case in his 
 pocket weighed upon him, pulled him down 
 to the ground. How had he dared venture 
 to offer her a gift in this moment! He 
 took the little case and threw it on the 
 ground trod on it, once, twice, raging, be- 
 side himself. So ! that did him good. He 
 must vent his wrath in some way.
 
 Asbe'in. 261 
 
 When he returned home about five 
 o'clock, he was calmer. What had happened 
 could not be changed, it was now only 
 worth while not to ruin the future. It dis- 
 quieted him that Natalie did not meet him, 
 but after all, he was not very astonished. 
 She still felt a little vexed with him. He 
 would soon make an end of that. He 
 asked where she was. " In her room," they 
 told him. But what was that? Every- 
 thing was upturned, chests stood open, on 
 chairs and tables lay piles of linen, clothes, 
 as before a departure. He did not yet 
 understand, but still he noticed that she 
 started violently at his entrance, without 
 looking around at him. 
 
 "What are you doing, Natalie? Are you 
 preparing for departure ? " asked he. 
 
 " As you see," replied she shortly, and 
 continued her strange occupation. 
 
 " It is a good idea," said he. " I already 
 myself wished to make the proposition to 
 you to move away from here. But how 
 did you really come to think of it?"
 
 262 Asbem. 
 
 Instead of any answer, she merely 
 shrugged her shoulders. A short pause fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 He stepped somewhat nearer to her. 
 " Natalie," said he, earnestly, warmly and 
 gently, with his old, dear voice, the voice 
 which always went so deep to her heart, 
 and which she now heard again for the first 
 time since his return from America, " Na- 
 talie, do you not think that we would do 
 better to make peace with each other?" 
 
 He wished to put his arm round her, but 
 she repulsed him. In so doing, for the first 
 time she turned her face to him. With hor- 
 ror he perceived how miserable she looked. 
 
 Her lips were pale, her features sharp- 
 ened like a dead person's. For one moment 
 she still restrained herself, her eyes sought 
 his. An unrest, a hope fevered in her. 
 " Perhaps I have in vain martyred and tor- 
 mented myself," she said to herself. " He 
 certainly could not speak so to me, if " 
 
 With trembling hand she opened a little 
 box, and took out the half-singed letter
 
 Asbe'in. 263 
 
 which she had not been able to overcome 
 herself from carrying about with her. She 
 handed Lensky the letter. 
 
 He changed color. " What accident has 
 played this silly note into your hands?" 
 he burst out. 
 
 " No matter about that," she replied 
 dully, and with that she tottered so that 
 she must catch hold of a chair so as not to 
 fall. " Were you in company with the 
 Lowenskiold in Paris or not?" 
 
 Why could he not lie? He remained 
 silent. 
 
 Once more she looked at him, despair- 
 ingly and supplicatingly. He turned away 
 his head. 
 
 She gave a gasping cry, pushed back the 
 hair from her temples with both hands, and 
 sank in a chair. Then she pointed with her 
 pale, trembling hand to the door. 
 
 Lensky did not move. 
 
 " Go ! " said she, severely ; and her hand 
 no longer trembled, and her gesture was 
 more imperious, more proud.
 
 264 Asbein. 
 
 Instead of obeying her command, he sank 
 down at her feet and covered the hem of 
 her dress with kisses. " I have sinned 
 against you," he said ; " yes, but if you 
 knew how furious I am with myself, and 
 how little my heart was concerned in the 
 affair, you would pardon me. You will not 
 certainly be jealous of something that is 
 quite beneath one's notice ; one does not 
 always think immediately what one is 
 doing." He shrugged his shoulders impa- 
 tiently. " For this reason you are still the 
 only woman in the world for me. Really, 
 my angel, it is not worth the pains that you 
 should torment yourself ! " He took her 
 hand in his. 
 
 But she started back from his touch. 
 " Leave me ! " said she, violently. " All is 
 at an end between us^go ! " 
 
 For the first time he comprehended the 
 gravity of the situation. " All at an end " 
 he murmured, while he rose. " What do 
 you mean?" 
 
 " That I will no longer bear to be under
 
 Asbein. 265 
 
 the same roof with you ; that I will go back 
 to my mother ; that I insist upon a separa- 
 tion that is what I mean. Did you, then, 
 expect anything different ?" 
 
 He clutched his forehead. " A separa- 
 tion ! but that is impossible ! " he gasped. 
 " A separation the children ! " 
 
 She started. " Yes the children ! " mur- 
 mured she, dully, inconsolably ; " the chil- 
 dren ! " And with a bitter smile she looked 
 down on her preparations for the journey, 
 on the trunks, the effects lying about. 
 
 Then he once more stepped up to her. 
 " You see that the bond between us can 
 never more be broken," said he, gently. 
 " You cannot go ! " 
 
 " No ! " said she harshly. " No, I cannot 
 go not even that consolation remains to 
 me. As the mother of your children I must 
 remain under your roof. But in everything 
 else between me and you all is at an end. 
 Go!" 
 
 He went.
 
 266 Asbein. 
 
 He betook himself to his study. Scarcely 
 had he entered here when a peculiar feeling of 
 mingled emotion and anxiety came over him. 
 He noticed that she had been here, noticed 
 that she had everywhere removed the dust ; 
 that she had arranged his of late neglected 
 writing-table, and how understandingly, 
 with what loving consideration of all his 
 whims ! He noticed the vase with fresh 
 roses. Evidently she had busied herself for 
 him during his absence. She had wished to 
 be reconciled to him, and while she troubled 
 herself for him she must have found the 
 note somewhere in this room. " It is all 
 over," he told himself ; " but that is really 
 not possible. It is jealousy that speaks 
 from her ; that will pass away." Jealousy ! 
 Yes, if it had really only been jealousy, but 
 that which he had read in her features was 
 something else almost a kind of loathing. 
 What, then, had he done? He had left a 
 distinguished young woman, beautiful as a 
 picture, alone for eight months, and when 
 he returned, instead of recompensing her
 
 Asbe'in. 267 
 
 for her long, sad loneliness by loving con- 
 sideration, he had daily, before her eyes, 
 let himself be raved over by other women, 
 and at last 
 
 " She despises me, and she is right ! " he 
 murmured to himself. " If she had borne 
 this also, she would have been pitiable, and 
 I must have despised her like the others 
 she, my proud, splendid Natalie! " 
 
 He sat at his writing-table, and rested his 
 head in his hand. 
 
 The twilight shadows spread over the 
 floor, and slid down from the ceiling, and 
 made the corners of the room invisible, and 
 obliterated the outlines of the furniture. 
 The colors died ; only the white roses shone 
 in a ghostly manner in the half light. 
 
 Then the door opened ; the servant an- 
 nounced that dinner was served. 
 
 It seemed strange to him that he should 
 go to the table to-day as any other day ; it 
 was not possible for him to eat anything, 
 but he was ashamed to cause talk among 
 the servants, and so he went into the din-
 
 268 Asbein. 
 
 ing-room. " Will she be there ? " he asked 
 himself. How could he have even fancied 
 such a thing? Naturally she was missing. 
 Only Kolia was there, and stood expect- 
 antly near the silver soup tureen, which 
 shone on the table. In their little family 
 circle, Lensky always himself served the 
 soup. Kolia had raised himself on tiptoes, 
 and with one slender finger had pushed the 
 cover of the dish somewhat to one side. 
 He stretched his little nose eagerly forward, 
 and slowly inhaled the rising odor, while 
 with a deliciously old, wise connoisseur ex- 
 pression he drew down his nostrils and 
 closed his eyes. 
 
 " I see already, it is crab soup my favor- 
 ite soup, papa ! " he remarked, and then 
 with agility he climbed up on the chair, 
 which, on account of his still insufficient 
 stature, was prepared with a cushion for 
 him. 
 
 It was certainly only a quite trivial little 
 affair, and yet it stabbed Lensky to the 
 heart.
 
 Asbetn. 269 
 
 Potage au bisque was also his favorite 
 soup. He stared at Natalie's place, which 
 remained vacant. 
 
 A great embarrassment mingled with his 
 pain. He sent the servant, busy at the 
 side-board, out of the room on some pre- 
 text. 
 
 "Mother is not coming?" he turned to 
 the boy, who had already begun to eat his 
 soup. 
 
 " No ; mamma has a headache. Poor 
 mamma! " 
 
 " Do you wish to be a very clever boy, 
 Kolia?" 
 
 " Yes, papa ! " 
 
 "Then take this bowl of soup to your 
 mother. Do not spill it ; perhaps mamma 
 will take a few drops." 
 
 With an important face Kolia undertook 
 his errand. Lensky opened the door of the 
 dining-room for him, and looked after him 
 while he tripped along the green-carpeted, 
 dimly-lighted corridor. How pretty and 
 pleasing all that was ! The lamps, which
 
 270 Asbein. 
 
 stood out from old-fashioned inlaid plates 
 of polished copper, the stags' antlers on 
 the brown wainscoting. And he had not 
 felt happy at home ! 
 
 Then Kolia came springing back. " I 
 left the soup there," he told his father, who 
 had remained listening and spying in the 
 doorway, " but mamma did not wish to 
 eat it." 
 
 " What is mamma doing ? " 
 
 " She is holding little sister on her lap." 
 
 In the course of the meal, and when he 
 noticed that his father's plate continually 
 remained empty, Kolia also lost his appe- 
 tite. At first, in the most caressing tones, 
 he urged his father to eat. 
 
 " But, papa, don't you see, you must 
 help yourself to a little bit ; it is such a 
 good dinner to-day. We made out the bill 
 of fare, mamma and I, early this morning at 
 breakfast, and I remembered all your favor- 
 ite dishes which she had forgotten. She 
 was so gay to-day, before she had a head- 
 ache, and she only got that headache be-
 
 Asbe'tn. 271 
 
 cause she ran through the park to-day with- 
 out any hat, in the noon sun. But eat 
 something, papa." 
 
 Lensky still stared at Natalie's empty 
 place. 
 
 All at once he noticed an unusual com- 
 motion in the house ; confused talking to- 
 gether, quick running to and fro. He 
 sprang up and went out in the corridor. 
 
 There he saw Natalie's maid, with dis- 
 turbed face, and anxious, over-hasty steps, 
 coming out of her mistress' room. 
 
 " What is the matter ; is madame more 
 ill ? " he asked in sudden fright. 
 
 " No, monsieur, but the little girl is very 
 ill ; it came on quite suddenly. Madame 
 has told me to hurry over to Chancy for 
 the doctor." 
 
 For one moment he stood still ; then he 
 turned to the sick-room entered. 
 
 It was no contagious illness. Kolia was 
 not sent away from the house ; only they 
 told him to keep very quiet, for which he'
 
 272 Asbein. 
 
 was ready without that, for the weight 
 which oppressed the house was sufficient to 
 constrain the fresh animation of his elastic 
 child-nature. Quite cautiously he only oc- 
 casionally crept up to the sick-room, opened 
 the door, whose knob he could scarcely 
 reach with his little hand, and whispered : 
 " How is little sister now? " 
 
 Yes, how was the little sister? 
 
 It was an inflammation of the lungs 
 which had attacked the little one. The 
 physician did not conceal from the parents 
 what little hope there was of recovery. 
 
 Two days, three nights long, they both 
 sat together near the cradle in which the 
 sick little girl lay ; two days, three nights, 
 in which the tiny body restlessly threw 
 itself here and there between the lace- 
 trimmed pillows, while the breath, inter- 
 rupted by fierce and tormenting fits of 
 coughing, with difficulty gaspingly forced 
 itself out from the little breast. Some- 
 times Maschenka cried impatiently and 
 pulled at the coverings with her weak little
 
 Asbetn. 273 
 
 hands, and then looked at her parents with 
 that hurt, reproachful look with which 
 quite little children desire relief from their 
 parents. 
 
 Why did not her parents help her why 
 must she suffer so? 
 
 And Natalie, who formerly had been the 
 tenderest mother in the whole world, took 
 this all wearily, almost indifferently, as a per- 
 son whose heart, benumbed by a great de- 
 spair, is no longer susceptible to a new pain. 
 She scarcely worried herself over the en- 
 dangered little life. Yes! Maschenka would 
 die, she told herself, the dear, charming 
 Maschenka, over whom she had always so 
 rejoiced. She still heard her cooing laugh- 
 ter like a distant echo in her remembrance. 
 Yes, Maschenka would die ! Why should 
 she not die? It wa's really better for her 
 than to grow up to feel such grief in the 
 future as had burned and parched her 
 mother's heart. Yes, she would die, and 
 then Natalie would lay her head down on 
 
 the little pillow, near the pale face of the 
 
 18
 
 274 Asbein. 
 
 child, and fall asleep forever rest forget ! 
 When Maschenka was dead, Natalie had no 
 more duties! Kolia? Oh, Kolia would 
 make his way in the world. 
 
 But Maschenka did not wish to die : this 
 world pleased her too well, she did not 
 wish to. 
 
 The fever became higher; ever more im- 
 patiently the child threw herself about in 
 the cradle. On the evening of the third 
 day the doctor, a skilful, wise, conscien- 
 tious family physician, whom Natalie had 
 frequently consulted for any little illness of 
 the children, and who, under the direction 
 of a Parisian specialist, fought with death 
 for Maschenka's little life, on the evening 
 of the third day he said that probably the 
 crisis would occur in the night ; he would 
 come again at six o'clock in the morning 
 and look after it. He said that very sadly. 
 Lensky accompanied him out. When he 
 came back in the sick-room, the expression 
 of his face was still sadder than before. 
 
 The little one became still more restless
 
 Asbein. 275 
 
 she would not stay in her cradle. Inces- 
 santly she raised herself from the pillows, 
 cried pitifully, and stretched out her little 
 arms. Natalie took the little patient, warm- 
 ly wrapped in coverings, on her lap, but the 
 little one would not stay there either. She 
 felt that her mother was not just the same 
 to her as formerly. Quite angrily she 
 turned away from her, and stretched out 
 her little hands to her father. Lensky 
 took her in his arms, wrapped the covering 
 still closer round her tiny limbs, and with a 
 thousand tender words, cpaxed her to rest. 
 With what evident pleasure the little body 
 leaned against his breast ! 
 
 Natalie's eyes rested on him. It had 
 been just the same for two days. He had 
 cared for the child, not she. Only she now, 
 for the first time, tdok account of it. 'How 
 tenderly he held the child ! what touchingly 
 poetic words of love he whispered to it ! 
 Expressions, such as one finds only in those 
 songs in which the people complain of their 
 pain ! Just such words had he formerly
 
 276 Asbe'in. 
 
 found for her at that time in those old 
 days, when he still loved her and a stream 
 of new, animating warmth crept through 
 her benumbed heart. 
 
 She still watched him. Her eyelids be- 
 came heavy. 
 
 Suddenly she started up, looked confus- 
 edly about her ; she had been fast asleep. 
 What had happened meanwhile? The 
 morning light already streamed into the 
 room ; without the rain rattled against the 
 window panes. When had it begun to rain 
 then? Where was Lensky? He stood 
 near the window and gazed out. How 
 sad he looked, how pale ! 
 
 The child! and with a. feeling of im- 
 measurably painful anxiety her heart now 
 fully awoke to new life. She had not the 
 courage to look in the cradle. Then Len- 
 sky turned to her. " The child ! " mur- 
 mured she. 
 
 He laid his finger on his mouth. " She 
 sleeps " Then listening: "The doctor 
 comes."
 
 Asbein. 277 
 
 The physician entered. He bent over 
 the cradle ; the little patient slept calmly 
 and sweetly, her little fist against her cheek. 
 Her little face was very pale and sadly 
 lengthened, but her brow was moist and a 
 peaceful expression was on her tiny mouth. 
 
 " She is better," said the doctor, aston- 
 ished and pleased. He scarcely understood 
 it. " The fever is gone, the crisis is past, 
 and if there are no quite unusual circum- 
 stances, the danger is over. A couple of 
 spoonfuls of strong broth when she wakes, 
 and no more medicine. Adieu, & tantdt /" 
 and he left the room. 
 
 The door had closed behind him, his steps 
 resounded in the corridor. Natalie rose ; 
 she did not know what she wished ; to look 
 at the child, to fall on her knees, to pray ! 
 Then her eyes met Lensky's. She started, 
 stretched out her arms as if to repel a sud- 
 denly awakened pain a swoon overcame 
 her she sank down. He took her in his 
 arms, carried her into the adjoining room, 
 and stretched her out on a couch. He
 
 278 Asbein. 
 
 opened the window and let the spicy, rain- 
 cooled morning air stream in. Then he wet 
 the temples of the unconscious woman with 
 cologne and loosened her dress. At that 
 her only carelessly fastened-up hair loosed 
 itself and slid down in all its dark abun- 
 dance over her shoulders. 
 
 How wonderfully charming she looked in 
 her pale, melancholy loveliness ! Involun- 
 tarily he approached his lips to her temples ; 
 then she opened her eyes ; a shudder shook 
 her frame and she turned her face away 
 from him. 
 
 It went through him from the top of his 
 head to the sole of his foot. He had for- 
 gotten, but now he remembered accurately. 
 How dared he approach this woman so con- 
 fidentially ! she was no longer his wife. 
 She had only tolerated him near her as 
 long as the child lay sick, really only toler- 
 ated ! With fearful bitterness he remem- 
 bered how she had held herself far from 
 him, even near Maschenka's bed of pain. 
 And now, when the little one was well
 
 Asbein. 279 
 
 why let himself be shown the door a second 
 time? 
 
 " You need not be afraid, Natalie, I am 
 going ; I had only forgotten pardon ! " 
 With that he could not deny himself to take 
 her hand ; he believed she would draw away 
 her hand from him ; no, she let it lie quite 
 passively in his. Now he wished to free it, 
 but then, quite softly, but ever firmer, her 
 fingers closed round his. She herself held 
 him back. Rejoicing and sobbing he drew 
 her to his breast. 
 
 Scarcely a moment later he felt in his in- 
 most heart quite strangely, uncomprehend- 
 ingly, a cold gnawing vexation. 
 
 He did not understand that she could 
 pardon so easily. He had not expected 
 that of her.
 
 FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 NATALIE ! Owing to business affairs which 
 will claim me still longer, it will be impossible for 
 me to come to Trouville before the beginning of Sep- 
 tember. I am very sorry, but I hope and wish that 
 you will not, on this account, put off your journey to 
 the sea-shore ; you know how you need the stay in 
 the bracing air. I have engaged a residence for you 
 through Madame cle C., and also had everything 
 arranged for your comfortable reception a low 
 chalet with a look-out over the sea. I know how you 
 love it, the poor wild sea, that cannot help it if it 
 sometimes crushes a ship, and that finds no rest from 
 despair over the evil which it does and cannot 
 prevent. 
 
 You must not take any sea-baths ; Dr. H. suitably 
 impressed that upon me in the spring. But in any 
 case, wait until I come. 
 
 From my great, clever boy I often receive long, 
 pretty, regularly written letters which please me 
 very much. I will show them to you when we are
 
 Asbe'in. 281 
 
 together again. The boy is romantic, through and 
 through, which touches me in these our present 
 times, and also a little of a pedant, which makes me 
 impatient, but still, he is a dear, splendid fellow, and 
 that you must tell him from me. 
 
 The little note, which I recently received from 
 Maschenka, was laughably comic, and sweet enough 
 to eat. The little witch wrote me quite secretly, 
 without telling you anything about it. She confessed 
 all her naughtinesses to me very remorsefully and 
 over hurriedly, from anxiety that you might write 
 something about them to me. Is she really so 
 naughty, and passionate, and wild ? She is still 
 charming in spite of all, so thoroughly good-hearted 
 and tender and generous, and withal so incredibly 
 gifted. I tell you her little note it was adorned 
 with three ink spots, and I could not read a word of 
 the writing but still it was a little poem. 
 
 And how she loves you ! Just as she is, I find 
 her charming enough to make one lose one's head 
 over her ; and I am very sorry that one must cure 
 her of her amusing little faults ; they are so becom- 
 ing to her. 'That you must naturally not tell her 
 from me, but give her a very warm kiss from me on 
 her full, defiant lips, of which you always assert that 
 they are like mine. Do not vex yourself too much 
 over it, rejoice in our little gypsy as she is.
 
 282 Asbe'tn. 
 
 And if you again worry over her inherited good-for- 
 nothingness, then look in her wonderfully beautiful, 
 large eyes, which she did not inherit from me. You 
 will find your soul in them let that be your conso- 
 lation. Farewell, my angel, spare yourself really 
 really ! Only do not think of saving at all on the 
 journey. You know that I cannot bear that. Think 
 only of your comfort and of what a joy it would be 
 to me if, at our next meeting, I should find your 
 poor thin cheeks somewhat rounder than when I 
 left you. 
 
 Your boundlessly devoted 
 
 BORIS. 
 
 It is in Berlin, in the Hotel du Nord, 
 nine years after the first violent quarrel, 
 the first passionate reconciliation with her 
 husband, that Natalie receives this letter. 
 
 She had left St. Petersburg a few days 
 before, in order, as by agreement, to meet 
 Lensky, whom she has not seen since the 
 beginning of March, in the German capital. 
 It had been a great disappointment for her 
 that she had not found Boris in Berlin, but 
 he has accustomed her to disappointments. 
 
 She reads the letter once more. It is a
 
 Asbein. 283 
 
 dear, good letter. Ah ! Natalie has received 
 such dear, good, tender letters from all 
 the large cities in Europe and America 
 and knows 
 
 Not that Boris is deceiving her when he 
 writes to her in this tender tone. No, every 
 trace of falseness is strange to him, his 
 attachment to her, his anxiety about her, 
 are sincere but 
 
 What use to grieve over it ? These great 
 geniuses are never different. One must not 
 judge them like other men ! With this 
 shallow commonplace, with which she has 
 so often put to sleep her inconsolable heart 
 if it sometimes wishes violently to rise up 
 against its oppressive, ignominious lot, she 
 compels it to rest again to-day. It is easier 
 now than formerly ; her poor heart has 
 already accustomed itself to grievances. 
 
 Nine years have passed since that time in 
 the pretty, cosey Hermitage when she 
 forgave him too easily, and thereby lost her 
 power over him forever. She has known it 
 a long time. Late in that following autumn
 
 284 Asbein. 
 
 a great symphony by him was given in the 
 " Gewandhaus," in Leipzig. The wprk was 
 beautiful, the success moderate, Lensky's 
 discouragement exaggerated, quite morbid. 
 A few months later he took up his wander- 
 er's staff anew, and left Petersburg, where 
 he had returned with his family, in order to 
 distract himself by the most exaggerated 
 virtuoso triumphs from the humiliation 
 which had befallen the composer. Oftener, 
 ever oftener, he had then left wife and chil- 
 dren, and now, in his own house, he had 
 long been only an indulged, distinguished 
 guest. 
 
 But in the time which he every year 
 devoted to his wife, to his family, he behaved 
 in an exemplary fashion. He did every- 
 thing that lay in his power to make life 
 bearable to Natalie everything except to 
 lay a restraint upon himself ; that he simply 
 could not, and for that reason he must 
 leave home so often in order to vent his 
 passion. 
 
 Natalie's nature was broken. An unex-
 
 Asbein, 285 
 
 pressed, numbing, blunting conviction that 
 this was the natural course of things, and 
 that nothing of all this could be changed, 
 had overpowered her. As to what might 
 take place while he was away from her, of 
 that she did not permit herself to think. 
 
 With his art matters had long gone down- 
 ward, even more rapidly than Natalie who 
 already after his return from America had 
 been startled by the exaggerations to which 
 he had accustomed himself in his playing 
 had deemed possible. At that time he had 
 given the reins to his temperament with assi- 
 duity in order to dazzle the public. Now 
 now, he had long lost power over himself. 
 And concerning his compositions ! A fear- 
 ful pain contracted Natalie's heart if she 
 thought how she had formerly, in her ten- 
 der enthusiasm, called him the last musi- 
 cal poet, in opposition to the other great 
 composers of modern times, whom at that 
 time she had described as musical bung- 
 lers. She could no longer remember the 
 speech without blushing.
 
 286 Asbem. 
 
 The bunglers had all grown above his 
 head. One scarcely spoke of his compo- 
 sitions now, and the worst of it was 
 Natalie herself no longer cared to hear 
 them. 
 
 Where was the sweet, sunny, charming 
 element of his first little works ? Where 
 the fiery earnestness, the penetrating, noble 
 sound of pain in his later works ? 
 
 Sleepy monotony, noisy emptiness were 
 now the characteristics of his musical crea- 
 tions. Certainly, here and there appeared 
 melodies of wonderful beauty ; but who had 
 the patience to seek out the lovely oases in 
 this sterile musical wilderness? 
 
 Once, Natalie had hesitatingly made a 
 remark to him about a new composition. 
 But he, who had formerly showed himself of 
 such unimpeachable gentleness toward her, 
 had flown into a passion, and had even for 
 many days remained irritable. Since that 
 time she said nothing more, but let him 
 have his way, as she let him have his way in 
 everything, only that she might not break
 
 Asbetn. 287 
 
 the last thin thread which still held them 
 together. 
 
 She had read the letter a third time. 
 " Business affairs detain him," she mur- 
 mured to herself. " Business affairs ! He 
 writes from Leipzig ; why does he not ask 
 me to come to him ? " She shrugged her 
 shoulders what good to think of it? 
 
 Suddenly her cheeks burned, her breath 
 came short. She pours out a glass of water, 
 throws a couple of bits of ice from a por- 
 celain bowl in it, and drinks thirstily. 
 " Such great geniuses are never different," 
 she says to herself again. She begins to 
 walk up and down in the room uneasily. 
 At last she goes to the window and looks 
 out. 
 
 A great weariness lay over everything. 
 The lindens slept, wrapped in white dust ; 
 the stony heroes at their feet looked morose 
 and weary, as if they were satiated with 
 letting themselves parch on their pedestals. 
 They throw pitch-black shadows over the
 
 288 Asbetn. 
 
 sun-burned road. A black poodle lies at 
 the foot of one of the memorials, on its 
 back, and does its utmost to pull off the 
 muzzle on its nose. The people are weary 
 and pale, and crowd into the shadow wher- 
 ever they can. Everything flees the sun. 
 No one remembers another such hot, dry, 
 oppressive summer. And suddenly a 
 strange longing for shade comes over 
 Natalie ; for gome deep, cool, shady place 
 in which she can rest. 
 
 The hollow, oppressive feeling about her 
 heart has become more significant, has 
 taken, at length, the form of a piercing 
 physical pain. She lays her hand on her 
 breast ; the physicians have told her that 
 she should spare herself, should guard 
 against every vehement sensation, because 
 her heart is affected. Suddenly she breaks 
 out in convulsive sobbing. Spare herself ! 
 Is it worth the trouble to spare one's self ; 
 to exert one's self for the preservation of 
 this poor life ; is it worth the trouble to 
 bend down again and again in the mire for
 
 Asbein. 289 
 
 the poor little bit of happiness that is 
 thrown to one as an alms ? 
 
 Then the door opens ; a charming little 
 girl of about ten years, large-eyed, gay, with 
 wonderful curly hair hanging far down her 
 back, with very long black stockings and 
 very short white dress, hops in Maschenka, 
 who had been to walk with the maid. The 
 first thing which she discovers when she 
 has scarcely greeted her mother and given 
 her a somewhat breathless and hurried ac- 
 count of the various impressions she has 
 formed on her walk, is Lensky's ' letter, 
 which has remained lying on the table. 
 " Oh, from papa ! " says she. " When is 
 he coming ; to-morrow ? " and her eyes 
 shine. 
 
 " He is not coming ; we are going to 
 Trouville without him," replies Natalie, 
 wearily. 
 
 " Without him," repeats Maschenka ; her 
 sweet, large-eyed cherub's face lengthens. 
 " Oh ! " looking at Natalie attentively 
 " Did you cry over that, mamma? " 
 19
 
 290 Asbe'in. 
 
 Natalie says nothing, only turns her head 
 away with a gesture of displeasure. 
 
 "He is coming after us?" asks Ma- 
 schenka, embarrassed. 
 
 " He promises to," replies Natalie, with 
 difficultly restrained bitterness. 
 
 " Poor mamma ! " and Maschenka ten- 
 derly kisses the tears away from her 
 mother's cheek. " You must not cry, it is 
 not good for you. You know papa cannot 
 bear to see you cry." 
 
 It is quite inexplicable how nature has 
 been able to bestow upon this tender, child- 
 ish, velvet-cheeked little being such a strik- 
 ing likeness to the face stamped by time, 
 weather, and life of the virtuoso. The 
 troubled, strangely deep look with which 
 Maschenka regards her mother ; the tender 
 and still defiant expression of her full lips ; 
 the manner of drawing together her delicate 
 brows, all that reminds one of her father. 
 But that in which her likeness to him is 
 most strikingly announced, is the bewitch- 
 ing heartiness of her manner, the flattering 
 insinuation of her caresses.
 
 Asbein. 291 
 
 Natalie observes her with quite fixed at- 
 tention, then draws her to her and kisses 
 her passionately on both eyes. 
 
 Meanwhile there is a knock at the door. 
 It is a waiter, who brings a telegram from 
 Petersburg. Natalie starts, her thoughts 
 fly to her son whom she has left behind 
 them. But no the telegram has nothing 
 to do with Kolia. It is really not from 
 Petersburg, but has only sought her there, 
 and has been sent after her to Berlin. She 
 reads : 
 
 DRESDEN, H6xEL BELLEVUE, August 4th. 
 Can you not take the roundabout way through 
 Dresden ? We would be very glad to see you. 
 
 SERGEI. 
 
 Why should she not take the roundabout 
 way through Dresden ? Why should she 
 hasten to reach Trouville, the full, empty 
 Trouville, where no one will be glad to see 
 her? 
 
 Shortly after his reconciliation with his 
 sister, Sergei had left St. Petersburg, in
 
 292 A she in. 
 
 order to follow his brilliant but exacting 
 diplomatic wandering career from one im- 
 portant but remote post to another, and 
 now he had at length been recalled to 
 Petersburg, to fill a high position at home. 
 Natalie cherished the conviction that he 
 suspected nothing of the slow crumbling 
 together of her happiness. How should he ! 
 Before him, more than before all the others, 
 she had concealed her great inconsolable- 
 ness. In the long letter which, by agree- 
 ment, she wrote him every month, she had 
 always forced herself to take as gay as pos- 
 sible a tone, and even if she was accus- 
 tomed, in the description of her " domestic 
 happiness " to dwell at especial length on 
 the lovability and happy dispositions of 
 both of her children, she yet had never 
 failed to mention the goodness of their 
 father and his unwearied consideration for 
 her. " How he would triumph if he knew ! " 
 she said to herself, on the platform in Dres- 
 den, while she uneasily looked round for 
 her brother, whom she had informed by
 
 Asbe'tn. 293 
 
 telegram of the hour of her arrival. " If he 
 
 knew anything of it ! " she said to herself, 
 
 and at the mere thought, it seemed to her 
 
 that she would flee to the end of the world, 
 
 rather than bear the cold scrutinizing glance 
 
 of his eye. Then a very slender man in 
 
 blameless English clothes came up to her, 
 
 looked at her a moment uncertainly, put 
 
 up his eye-glass " Natalie ! it is really 
 
 you ! " and evidently truly pleased to see 
 
 her again he draws her hand to his lips. 
 
 And now she is also glad to see him, is pleased 
 
 to be with her brother, as she has never yet 
 
 been glad since her betrothal to Lensky. 
 
 He has changed very much since that time 
 
 in Rome when he had vainly sought to 
 
 destroy Natalie's illusions; but, as with all 
 
 really distinguished men, growing old was 
 
 becoming to him. If his bearing is still 
 
 proud, it has yet lost much of its harsh, 
 
 nervous, immature arrogance of that time. 
 
 His fine features are still sharper, but his 
 
 glance has become softer, more benevolent. 
 
 " That is your little girl ? " says he, bend-
 
 294 Asbc'in. 
 
 ing down to Maschenka, pleasantly. " May 
 one ask a kiss of such a large young lady?" 
 
 The gay Maschenka, always bent upon 
 the conquest of all hearts, hops up to him 
 with hearty readiness, and throws both her 
 little arms round his neck. " Elle est char- 
 mante ! " whispers Sergei in a somewhat 
 patronizing tone to Natalie. 
 
 " We find her very like the Maria ^Egyp- 
 tica of Ribera your favorite picture in the 
 Dresden Gallery. Do you not remember 
 it?" 
 
 "Indeed!" The prince bends down a 
 second time, wonderingly, to Maschenka. 
 Suddenly his face takes on a discontented 
 expression. " She chiefly resembles Len- 
 sky ; I do not understand how that could 
 escape me ! " says he, and his tone ex- 
 presses decided displeasure. 
 
 "And still if he knew! " thinks Natalie. 
 
 " Kolia looks like you," says she, hastily. 
 
 " They have often written me that," says 
 the prince. " Besides, they tell me only 
 good things of him ; I shall be glad to see a
 
 Asbe'in. 295 
 
 
 
 great deal of him in Petersburg. And now 
 come, Natalie. I wished to have rooms in 
 Bellevue for you, but there were none to be 
 had ; not a mouse hole ; all engaged. We 
 ourselves live at the extreme end of a cor- 
 ridor. So I have taken a little apartment 
 for you in the Hotel du Saxe. It is a plain 
 house, but the nearest one to us, and you 
 will not be there much. Send your maid 
 ahead with the luggage. I hope you will 
 now come direct to our rooms with me, you 
 and the little one ; my wife awaits you at 
 dinner." 
 
 And now Natalie has been in Dresden 
 since many hours. The joy of the meeting 
 with her brother has fled, a great depression 
 benumbs her whole being. What a home ! 
 Sergei's wife, born a Countess Brok, who is 
 two years older than he, and whom he has 
 married on account of the influential posi- 
 tion of her father, suffers with rheumatism, 
 on which account she fears a little bit of too 
 warm sunshine as well as a slight draught.
 
 296 Asbein. 
 
 
 
 The meal is taken in the drawing-room of 
 the married pair, instead of down on the 
 gay, sunny terrace, as Sergei had ordered. 
 After the princess has welcomed Natalie, 
 and has said something in praise of Ma- 
 schenka's beautiful hair, her remarks con- 
 sist in commanding her companion, a very 
 homely little Frenchwoman, by turns to 
 open or close a window. 
 
 After dinner the married couple quar- 
 rel over several immaterial trifles, which 
 momentarily interest no one ; over the lat- 
 est Russian table of duties, and as to 
 whether it is better to treat scarlet fever 
 with heat or with cold. Then Varvara Pav- 
 lovna busies herself in her favorite occupa- 
 tion ; that is to say, twisting paper flowers. 
 Natalie took part in this, but Maschenka, to 
 whom they have confided an album with 
 views of Dresden for her entertainment, 
 has uneasily crept about the room, now 
 reached after this and now that, has hopped 
 around first on the right, then on the left 
 leg, until at last Natalie's maid presents
 
 Asbein. 297 
 
 herself to ask her mistress if she has any- 
 thing to command or to be done, whereupon 
 Natalie has commissioned her to take the 
 little one out for a walk, and then to take 
 her to the Hotel du Saxe. 
 
 Then Sergei read something aloud from 
 the newspaper ; then tea was brought. 
 
 It is nine o'clock. Natalie rises, says 
 that she is tired, and that she would like to 
 retire early to-night. Sergei asks : " Do 
 you wish to drive ? Shall I send for 'a car- 
 riage ? It would really be a shame ! The 
 evening is lovely ; if you go on foot, I will 
 accompany you." 
 
 They go on foot. " I do not know what 
 fancy has seized me to loiter about a little," 
 she says in the passage, where Sergei has 
 remained standing to light a cigarette. 
 "Would you have time?" she asks her 
 brother. 
 
 " Yes," replies he, " I am very willing to 
 walk a little. Where do you wish to go ? " 
 
 " Anywhere, where it is quiet and pretty, 
 and where one does not hear this cafe
 
 298 Asbein. 
 
 chantant music." She points over the 
 Elbe, where from out a dazzlingly lighted 
 enclosure, frivolous dance measures sound 
 boldly and obtrusively over the dreamy 
 plash of the waves. 
 
 " Come in the fortress grounds," says 
 Sergei, and gives her his arm. And sud- 
 denly a kind of anxiety at being alone with 
 him overcomes Natalie. " Now he will 
 question me," thinks she, and would like to 
 tear her arm away from him and has not 
 the courage to do it. 
 
 They are quite alone in the court-yard, 
 the world-renowned court-yard of the fort- 
 ress, with its enclosure of strange, carved, 
 exaggerated, and charming irregular archi- 
 tecture ; only the sentinel continually goes 
 along the same path, up and down, and 
 above, on the flat terrace roofs of the fort- 
 ress, a couple of friends are walking. One 
 hears them laugh, jest ; yes, even kiss, 
 standing in the court below. They may be 
 lovers, or some couple on their wedding tour. 
 
 The lanterns burn red and sleepily in the
 
 Asbe'in. 299 
 
 transparent pale gray of the summer half 
 light, and the buttons of the sentinel shine 
 dully ; all other light is extinguished in the 
 world, but up in heaven the stars slowly 
 open their golden eyes. What is there 
 down here to-day for them to look at ? 
 
 A thunder-storm threatens, but one does 
 not see it as yet, but only hears its hollow 
 voice growling in the distance. 
 
 Slowly the brother and sister wander 
 along the narrow way between the old-fash- 
 ioned, regularly laid-out flower-beds. The 
 stony faces of satyrs and fauns grin down 
 upon them with triumphant cynicism. One 
 can still see their small eyes, slanting up- 
 ward toward the temples, distinctly in the 
 dull, shadowless, clear twilight. The air is 
 sultry and close, and quite immoderately 
 impregnated with the sad, penetrating per- 
 fume of weary flowers which have been tor- 
 mented by an over-hot summer day. 
 
 "Do you remember the last time that we 
 walked around here together?" remarked 
 Sergei, at length breaking the silence.
 
 300 Asbein. 
 
 "Yes," says Natalie. "It was the year 
 before our father's death. I was not much 
 older than Maschenka, and you had not 
 completed your studies." 
 
 " Quite right, I did not yet feel myself 
 obliged to be ambitious, in order to help 
 raise our family from its sunken condition," 
 said Sergei very bitterly. " Father had 
 taken me with him during my vacation, in 
 order to cultivate my aesthetic taste. Only 
 think, Natalie, at that time I wrote a poem 
 on the Sistine Madonna ! I ! that is very 
 laughable, is it not ? " 
 
 " You a poem," says Natalie, aston- 
 ished, and still absently ; the affair has in 
 reality little interest for her. 
 
 " Yes, I a poem ! " repeats Sergei. " I 
 now at that time I was an idealist, however 
 improbable that may seem to you ! Now, 
 now I am a machine, who still sometimes 
 dreams of having been a man ! " He laughs 
 harshly and forcedly, and is suddenly 
 silent. After a while he begins again : 
 " Just look at the roses, Natascha," and he
 
 Asbein. 301 
 
 points to the slender bushes which are al- 
 most broken under their weight of dried 
 blossoms. " Have you ever seen such an 
 Ash Wednesday? Early this morning they 
 were still fresh ! It is a pitiless sum- 
 mer." 
 
 Natalie lowers her head. " Now it is com- 
 ing," she thinks. " Now it is coming." But 
 no, not what she has expected, but some- 
 thing different, comes. 
 
 "Did it ever occur to you," continues 
 Sergei after a little while, " how very much 
 a tree struck by lightning resembles one 
 killed by frost? In the end it all tends in 
 the same direction." He is silent. After 
 a while he says, looking her straight in the 
 eyes: " Did you understand me?" 
 
 " Yes, I understand," murmurs she, tone- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Hm ! it was plain enough. You are dy- 
 ing of heat, I of cold ! " says he, and laugh- 
 ing slightly to himself, he adds : " Do you 
 still remember how I lectured you at that 
 time in Rome ?"
 
 3O2 Asbe'in. 
 
 Instead of any answer, she pulls her hand 
 away from his arm. Compassionately her 
 brother looks at her through the gray veil 
 of the now fast-descending twilight. " Poor 
 Natascha ! " he says. " You surely do not 
 believe that I will return to my wisdom of 
 that time no ! I will make you a great 
 confession ! " His voice sounds hissingly 
 close to her ear. She feels his breath un- 
 pleasantly hot on her cheeks. " There are 
 moments when I envy you ! " he whispers. 
 " Bah ! that one must say of one's self : 
 it is over, one is old, one will die, without 
 once having been deeply shaken by a true 
 shudder of delight, sans avoir connu le 
 grand frisson it is horrible! I know what 
 you have to bear, Natalie, and still yes, 
 there are moments when I envy you ! " 
 
 " Who has then permitted himself to 
 assert that I have anything to bear?" Na- 
 talie bursts out. 
 
 " Who ? " Sergei raises his eyebrows. 
 " You surely do not fancy that it is a 
 secret?" says he. " Many wonder that you
 
 Asbei'n. 303 
 
 endure it ; as it seems, he exercises an in- 
 credible charm over all women ! " 
 
 Her eyes and his meet in the sultry half 
 darkness. " What have they told you ? " 
 asks Natalie, with difficulty. 
 
 But then he replies with fearful emphasis : 
 " You surely do not demand an answer of 
 me in earnest ? " 
 
 She breathes heavily. " It is not true ! " 
 says she. " They have lied to you ! " 
 
 Thereupon he remains silent. The sul- 
 triness becomes ever more oppressive. 
 Heavy thunder-clouds creep slowly and 
 threateningly over the roof of the fortress 
 and blot out the stars from the heavens. 
 
 Natalie has turned away from her brother, 
 and with uneasy haste she hurries to the 
 gate of the yard ; he comes after her. " I 
 am sorry to have wounded you," he says. 
 " I had not that intention." 
 
 She answers nothing ; silently she walks 
 along near him. From time to time he 
 pulls her gently by the sleeve and says : 
 " This is the way." The stars are all extin-
 
 304 Asbe'in. 
 
 guished, clouds cover the whole heaven, and 
 close to the ground sighs a heavy wind 
 which cannot yet rise to a hurricane. What 
 is it in this depressing sound of nature 
 which chases the blood more rapidly through 
 her veins? 
 
 At the door of the great, many-storied 
 hotel, Natalie wishes to take leave of her 
 brother. " I will accompany you to your 
 room," says Sergei. 
 
 Silently, she lets him remain near her. 
 With bowed head she goes up the broad 
 staircase to the first landing ; then some- 
 thing wakes her from her brooding thoughts 
 the rustling of a woman's dress. She 
 looks up there goes a man up the stairs 
 to the second story with a heavily veiled 
 woman on his arm. She sees him for one 
 moment only ; then the shadow of his pro- 
 file passes quickly over the wall ; she turns 
 away her head. It is he she has recognized 
 him ! Silently and with doubled haste she 
 follows her brother's guidance. " Your 
 room is No. 53," says he, and turns the
 
 Asbe'tn. 305 
 
 door-knob of a room. The lamp is lighted, 
 everything cosily prepared for her recep- 
 tion. " I will disturb you no longer," says 
 Sergei. His manner has become very stiff, 
 his voice is icy cold, and before he leaves 
 the room his glance seeks a last time the 
 eyes of his sister. 
 
 She is alone. Trembling in all her limbs, 
 she has thrown herself down on a sofa. 
 The maid presents herself with the question 
 whether her mistress wishes to undress. 
 Natalie signifies to her to go away, to retire 
 for the night to her room in an upper story. 
 The maid goes, happy to be released from 
 her service, weary, sleepy. Natalie does 
 not think of sleeping. How should she 
 think of it when she knows that here, under 
 the same roof, a few rooms distant from 
 her It is horrible ! It seems to her 
 that she is slowly suffocating in a close, 
 oppressing dread. 
 
 The lamp burns brightly. As a maid of 
 
 good form, Lisa has already unpacked those 
 20
 
 306 Asbein. 
 
 little objects which luxurious women always 
 carry about with them, even on the shortest 
 journey, in order to make a hotel residence 
 cosey. On the table lies Natalie's portfolio ; 
 her travelling writing utensils stand near 
 by ; and near the ink-case two photographs 
 in pretty little leather frames the pictures 
 of her husband and of her son. Shuddering, 
 she turns away. She pushes the hair back 
 from her temples. " Sergei recognized him 
 also ! " murmurs she to herself. " It was 
 impossible not to recognize him," whispers 
 she, " and Sergei believes that I will still bear 
 this also. And why should he not believe 
 it?" 
 
 For years she has waded through the 
 mire after a fata morgana, and the world 
 laughs, and points its fingers at her. What 
 does she care about the world, if she can 
 only once shake off the feeling of boundless 
 degradation which drags her down to the 
 ground ? In a few days he will come to her 
 with loving glance, uneasily concerned about 
 her, with a thousand anxious, tender words,
 
 Asbein. 307 
 
 with open arms. And she well, she she 
 will rush into those arms, forgive and forget 
 everything as before. Ah ! she springs 
 up. 
 
 A few moments later she stands near the 
 bed of her little daughter. The child looks 
 very lovely in her white night-gown, richly 
 trimmed with lace and embroidery. One 
 of her hands rests under her cheek, the 
 other is hidden under the pillow. Formerly 
 Natalie has come every night to the bed of 
 the child in order to kiss and bless her, still 
 asleep. But to-night her tortured heart is 
 capable of no tender emotion. 
 
 " Wake up ! " she commands, in a harsh, 
 strange voice. Maschenka starts up, there- 
 by involuntarily drawing her hand out from 
 under the pillow, and with the hand a little 
 letter which she immediately tries to con- 
 ceal again from her mother. But Natalie 
 tears it away from her. " What have you 
 to conceal from me ? " she says to the little 
 girl, imperiously. 
 
 " I have only written to papa ! " replies
 
 308 Asbein. 
 
 Maschenka excusingly, tearfully. " I wrote 
 him that you are sad, and that he must 
 come very soon because we will be so glad 
 that was all." 
 
 Natalie tears the poor little letter apart 
 in the middle. " Dress yourself ! " she or- 
 ders. 
 
 " Is there a fire ? " asks Maschenka, fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " No, but something has happened ; we 
 cannot stay in the hotel ; do not ask." 
 
 Sleepy, but obedient, as a good child who 
 has the most complete confidence in her 
 mother, Maschenka sets about putting on 
 the clothes daintily arranged on a chair 
 near her little bed. Natalie helps her as 
 well as her fingers, trembling with fever, 
 will permit her, then wrapping head and 
 shoulders in a lace scarf, she takes the 
 child by the hand and hurries down the 
 stairs. 
 
 " Is the princess going out?" asks the 
 porter, who has not the heart to give 
 the sister of Prince Assanow another title.
 
 Asbein. 309 
 
 " The weather is very threatening ; shall 
 I send for a carriage ? " 
 
 Natalie takes no notice of him, pushes by 
 him like a strange, inexplicable apparition. 
 
 The stars are all extinguished, clouds 
 cover the whole heaven, and close to the 
 ground sighs a weary wind. 
 
 What is it in this confused, depressing 
 sound of nature which chases the blood 
 through her veins? In the midst of her 
 excitement she hears the chromatic succes- 
 sion of tones her breath stops it is that 
 inciting, musical poison, that now follows 
 her with a longing complaint, a strange, 
 alluring call Asbein. 
 
 The wind rises, screams louder and more 
 shrill, its sultry breath rages so powerfully 
 against Natalie that she can scarcely pro- 
 ceed. One, two great water-drops splash in 
 her face, then more. Pointed hailstones 
 prick her between them ; all drive her back 
 back. 
 
 Has not some one seized her by the
 
 310 Asbe'in. 
 
 dress ? She looks round. No ! she is alone 
 on the street with her child and the raging 
 storm. Forward she hastens, panting, 
 breathless. The way to Bellevue is quite 
 easy to find quite straight along the street. 
 It grows darker and darker, the rain falls in 
 streams, the clothes hang ever heavier on 
 her body, she can scarcely lift her feet from 
 the paving ; it is as if all would drag her 
 down to the ground all ! Twice she loses 
 her way, twice she suddenly, as if attracted 
 by an evil charm, stands before the Hotel 
 du Saxe. 
 
 Maschenka cries silently and bitterly to 
 herself. There this wall ornamented with 
 black lead, Natalie remembers, and here 
 the large mass of formless shadow is not 
 that the Catholic church? 
 
 A flash of lightning rends the darkness 
 Natalie sees the immense stairs of the Briihl 
 terrace, with its adornments of colossal 
 gilded statues ; she sees the broad, black 
 river flowing along, cool, alluring ; hastily 
 she goes across the place, for one moment
 
 Asbe'in. 311 
 
 her eyes rest on the stream Maschenka 
 pulls her by the arm with her tender little 
 fingers, and whispers: "lam afraid, mam- 
 ma ; I am afraid ! " 
 
 Then Natalie turns away from the most 
 alluring temptation that has ever met her 
 in life, and the water ripples behind her as 
 if in anger that they have torn away a sac- 
 rifice from it. 
 
 Now they have reached the H6tel Belle- 
 vue ; the phlegmatic Hollander in the 
 porter's lodge looks after her in astonish- 
 ment as she rushes past him, stretches his 
 powerful limbs, sticks his thumbs in the 
 arm-holes of his vest, closes his eyes, 
 sleepily, and murmurs, " These Russian 
 women ! " 
 
 She finds the number of her brother's sit- 
 ting-room. Light still shines through the 
 keyhole. She bursts open the door. Var- 
 vara Pavlovna is still busy making flowers. 
 Sergei sits bent over a railroad courier, the 
 eternal samovar stands on its small table. 
 
 " What has happened, Natalie, for God's
 
 312 Asbe'in. 
 
 sake ? " says Varvara, as she discovers Na- 
 talie's figure, dripping with water, her pale, 
 staring face, her burning eyes, and the little 
 girl by her side. " What has happened? " 
 
 The brother does not ask. 
 
 " I come to seek shelter with you," mur- 
 murs Natalie, breaking down, as she sinks 
 upon a sofa ; then turning to Sergei, she 
 with difficulty gasps out : " You under- 
 stand I could not stay there it it is all 
 over!" 
 
 Yes, it was all over all. The bond be- 
 tween him and her was broken. He was 
 beside himself when he discovered what 
 had taken place, begged for a meeting, 
 wrote her the tenderest letters. She left 
 his letters unanswered. 
 
 Then a wild defiance overcame him. 
 It angered him that she had placed her- 
 self under her brother's protection that 
 brother, who from the beginning had 
 wished to sow discord between him and 
 her. He also could not be persuaded that
 
 Asbein. 3 1 3 
 
 the prince had not alone been the cause of 
 the separation. 
 
 The circumstance that Natalie travelled 
 in advance with her sister-in-law to Baden- 
 Baden, while Assanow remained in Dresden 
 to arrange with Lensky, strengthened him 
 in his conviction. 
 
 It did not come to a legal separation. 
 Lensky was not the man to use compulsion 
 with a woman ; if she did not wish to stay 
 with him, he let her go voluntarily. That 
 she wished to keep the child with her was 
 understood of itself ; he could see the child 
 from time to time, for a couple of weeks, on 
 neutral ground. Nikolas, as one could not 
 interrupt him in his studies, quite naturally 
 remained with his father in St. Petersburg. 
 
 "All that is understood of itself; why 
 lose words over it?" thought Lensky to 
 himself, while he quite passively consented 
 to all the propositions of the diplomat. 
 
 For what reason did the unendurable 
 man remain sitting there and tormenting 
 him?
 
 3 14 Asbein. 
 
 Quite everything was wound up between 
 them it was afternoon, and the brothers- 
 in-law sat opposite each other at a long 
 table strewn with papers, in a large, gloomy 
 room, with dark green damask hangings, 
 in the Hotel du Saxe. A pause had oc- 
 curred. 
 
 " What does he still wish ? " thought 
 Lensky, and drummed unrestrainedly on 
 the top of the table, while at the same time 
 he gave a significant glance toward the door. 
 
 Assanow coughed a couple of times ; at 
 last he began : " In conclusion, I must 
 touch upon a delicate point the question 
 of money. My sister formally rejects all 
 assistance on your part, Boris Nikolaivitch, 
 and wishes strictly to limit herself to live 
 on her own income! " 
 
 Then Lensky flew into a rage: "And 
 you have declared yourself agreed to that?" 
 he cried, to his brother-in-law. 
 
 " I should have considered it undignified 
 in my sister if she had wished to act other- 
 wise ! " replied Assanow.
 
 Asbein. 315 
 
 Lensky clutched his temples with a ges- 
 ture which was peculiar to him. 4< Ah ! 
 leave me in peace with- your pasteboard 
 dignity," said he, impatiently. " I cannot 
 endure the word a parade expression which 
 means nothing live on her own income 
 my poor luxurious Natalie but that is 
 madness, simply not possible ! You are 
 indeed her brother, but still you do not 
 know her. Such a tender, guarded hot- 
 house plant as she is ! Why, she would die 
 if she did not have what she needed." 
 
 " With the best will, I would not be able 
 to persuade her to take anything from you," 
 replied Sergei, earnestly. 
 
 "Not?" Lensky struck his clenched fist 
 on the table. " Listen, Sergei Alexandro- 
 vitch, you are not only pitiless, you are also 
 stupid. If she will not take anything from 
 me, deceive her a little, tell her that the 
 rents of her estate have increased, that you 
 have sold building land for her, or what do 
 I know ! With women that is so easy, es- 
 pecially with her, poor soul ! who has
 
 316 Asbein. 
 
 never understood the difference in appear- 
 ance between ten rubles and a thousand 
 but force the money upon her, she must 
 have it ! And hear me ! if you do not so 
 care for it that she takes it, then I will make 
 a scandal for you, and insist upon a legal 
 exposition ! " 
 
 For a moment Assanow was silent, then 
 he said : " Good, I will arrange it ! " with 
 that he rose and offered Lensky his 
 hand. 
 
 But Lensky refused it. " Let that go ! 
 Between you and me there is no friendship. 
 After the ' service ' which you have ren- 
 dered me such grimaces are repulsive." 
 
 " You are mistaken if you believe I would 
 have persuaded Natalie to the separation," 
 assured the Prince. " Naturally, however, 
 as a conscientious man, I could not dissuade 
 her therefrom." 
 
 " Conscientious ! Certainly, hangmen are 
 always conscientious that one knows," 
 murmured Lensky, and stamped his foot 
 on the ground. " Well, you will see what
 
 Asbnn. 317 
 
 you have done ! Meanwhile go. I will 
 not longer bear it go ! " 
 
 When Assanow hereupon wrote Natalie 
 in Baden that the affair was arranged with 
 Lensky, and the separation declared he 
 added, at the same time: "I. feel myself 
 obliged to say to you, that Lensky in this 
 whole affair has acted not only honorably, 
 but really nobly." 
 
 To his wife wrote Sergei at the same 
 time : " I do not understand the man ! 
 figurez-vous that I myself for a moment, 
 was sous le charme. What a depth of no- 
 bility is in this prodigy ! His is an enor- 
 mous nature ! " 
 
 As long as the separation was still im- 
 pending, as long as the conferences still 
 lasted, a kind of restless life fevered in Nata- 
 lie ; she forced her being, naturally inclined 
 to tender reliance and dependence, to an 
 independent strength of will, of which no 
 one had thought her capable.
 
 3i8 Asbe'in. 
 
 But when the last word was spoken, the 
 separation at length validly arranged, she 
 fell into a .condition of brooding sadness 
 from which nothing more could rouse her. 
 
 For still three years she lived after the 
 separation ; three years, in which every 
 hour endlessly dragged itself along, and 
 which flowed together in the recollection 
 into a single endless, cold, dull day; a day 
 in that northern zone where the sun, with 
 far-extending, weak, weary beams, tardily 
 remains the whole twenty-four hours long, 
 standing on the horizon, and grudges the 
 night its refreshing darkness and the day 
 its light. 
 
 Her torment reached an exquisite culmi- 
 nation when Maschenka, who idolized her 
 father, and who, in her childish innocence, 
 had no idea of the state of affairs, in the 
 beginning incessantly and anxiously asked 
 her mother little questions referring to the 
 separation. Natalie gave her no answer, 
 frowned and turned away her head. And 
 sometimes Maschenka then became ungov-
 
 Asbein. 319 
 
 ernable and angry. Her little warm, loving 
 heart could not understand why they had 
 taken away her idol. 
 
 Once, Lensky asked for his daughter for 
 two weeks. Maschenka, with her English 
 governess, was sent to Nice to her grand- 
 mother, where Lensky daily visited her. 
 When, loaded with presents, her heart full 
 of sweet, tender recollections, she came back 
 again to Cannes, where Natalie had mean- 
 while awaited her, with fearful obstinacy 
 she insisted in relating to Natalie endless 
 things about the goodness and lovability of 
 the father, and especially how impressively 
 and anxiously he had inquired after mamma. 
 Her full, deep little voice trembled resent- 
 fully thereby, and an angry reproach dark- 
 ened her large, clear child's eyes. 
 
 For a while Natalie was quite calm, then, 
 without having replied a word to the child, 
 she stood up and left the room. 
 
 Maschenka observed with astonishment 
 how she tottered and hit against the furni- 
 ture like a blind person. Thereupon the
 
 320 Asbein. 
 
 child remained as if rooted to the ground, 
 with thoughtfully wrinkled brow, her little 
 hands glued to her sides, standing, staring 
 down at the carpet as if she there sought 
 the solution to the great, sad riddle which 
 so occupied her. Then with a short mo- 
 tion as if shaking off something, which she 
 had caught from her father, like so much 
 else, she threw her little head back and hur- 
 ried after her mother. 
 
 Natalie had retired to her bedroom. 
 Maschenka found her deathly pale, with 
 helpless, stiff bearing, and hands folded 
 straight before her, sitting in an easy chair ; 
 her weary glance, directed in front of her, 
 expressed inconsolable despair. 
 
 " Little mother, forgive me, oh, forgive 
 me ! " begged the child, embracing her 
 mother with her soft, warm arms. " Some- 
 times it seems to me as if you love him as 
 much as I, only you do not wish to. But 
 why do you cover your soul with a veil; 
 why? Oh, why did you separate yourself 
 from him? He was not very much with
 
 Asbein. 321 
 
 us without that, but still it was so lovely to 
 expect him and to rejoice over him from 
 one time to another!" And Maschenka 
 burst out in violent weeping. 
 
 Natalie remained silent, but she raised 
 the child on her knee and kissed her, ah, 
 how tenderly ! Every tear she kissed away 
 from the round little cheeks. And Ma- 
 schenka never repeated her question. 
 
 Once, in the night Maschenka's little 
 room was next to her mother's bedroom 
 the child awoke ; from the adjoining room 
 sounded soft, whimpering, difficultly re- 
 strained sobs. 
 
 She wandered from Venice to Florence, 
 from Florence to Nice, from Nice to Pau 
 all the European cities of refuge for up- 
 rooted existences she sought out. No- 
 where could Natalie find rest. Sometimes 
 she tried to distract herself. She never vis- 
 ited large entertainments, but she associated 
 with her old friends if she met them in their 
 
 different exiles, gradually slid back into the 
 21
 
 322 Asbein. 
 
 old, aristocratic atmosphere in which she 
 had been brought up ; but, strange ! she no 
 longer felt at home therein, and in her in- 
 consolable misery a feeling of insensible 
 ennui mingled itself. 
 
 His name never crossed her lips. Did she 
 ever think of him ? Day and night. The 
 more she tried to accustom herself to other 
 people the more she thought of him. How 
 empty, how shallow, how insignificant were 
 all the others in comparison to him ; how 
 cold, how hard ! 
 
 Her health went rapidly downward. A 
 short, nervous cough tormented her, her 
 hands were now ice-cold, now hot with fever. 
 Associated with that was something else 
 strangely tormenting: she almost inces- 
 santly had the feeling that her heart was 
 torn away from its natural place ; she felt in 
 her breast something like an uneasy flutter- 
 ing, like the beating of the wings of a 
 deathly weary, sinking bird. 
 
 She slept badly and was afraid of sleep, 
 for always the whole spring of her love,
 
 Asbe'in. 323 
 
 with its entrancing charm and perfume of 
 flowers, arose in her dreams again. Again 
 vibrated through her soul the swelling musi- 
 cal, alluring call Asbe'in. Little trifles, 
 which in her waking condition she no longer 
 remembered, came to her mind, and when 
 she awoke she burned with fever and hid 
 her face, gasping, in her pillows. She con- 
 sumed herself in longing ; a longing of which 
 she was ashamed as of a sin, and which she 
 fought as a sin. 
 
 Gradually she became wearier and more 
 calm. His picture began to obliterate itself 
 from her memory. 
 
 It was in Geneva, in a music shop. Na- 
 talie, who had gone out to attend to a few 
 trifles, entered and desired the Chopin 
 Etudes, which she had promised to bring 
 the extremely musical Maschenka. While 
 a clerk looked for the music, she observed 
 an elderly man she divined the piano 
 teacher in him talking about a photograph
 
 324 Asbein. 
 
 which he held in his hand, to the woman 
 who managed the business. 
 
 She glanced fleetingly at the photograph 
 she shuddered. 
 
 " So that is he ; that is the way he looks 
 now ! C'est quit a terriblement changt" said 
 the piano teacher. 
 
 " Que voulcz-vous, with the existence 
 which he leads? " replied the woman. " If 
 one burns the candle of life at both ends ! " 
 
 " But he should stop it, a married man, 
 as he is," said the music teacher. 
 
 " My goodness ; his marriage is so so 
 he has been separated, who knows how 
 long, already." The woman shrugged her 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Ah! Who, then, is his wife?" 
 
 " Some great lady who has made enough 
 out of him, and to whom he has become 
 inconvenient," replied the old woman. 
 
 " So h'm ! that explains much," said the 
 musician, and laying down the photograph, 
 he added : " enfin cest tin homme fini" With 
 that he seized the roll of music which had
 
 Asbe'in. 325 
 
 been prepared for him and left the shop. 
 Natalie bought the photograph, without 
 having the courage to look at it before 
 strangers. Arrived at home, she unwrapped 
 the portrait. For the first time since that 
 evening when she ran out of the Hotel du 
 Saxe she looked at a picture of him. She 
 was frightened at the fearful physical dete- 
 rioration designated in his features. Around 
 the mouth and under the eyes hateful lines 
 were drawn ; but from the eyes still spoke 
 the deep, seeking glance as formerly, and 
 on the lips lay an expression of inconsolable 
 goodness. " A great lady who has made 
 enough out of him, and to whom he has 
 become inconvenient," Natalie repeated to 
 herself again and again. That truly was 
 false from beginning to end. Still, a great 
 uneasiness overcame her. The reproofs 
 which she believed she had expiated once 
 for all by the easy, tender confession that 
 she had set aside her beloved husband on 
 account of her scruples, now rose sharply 
 and reprovingly before her.
 
 326 Asbc'in. 
 
 A nervous condition, which culminated 
 in a long-enduring cramp of the heart, befell 
 her; the cramp was followed by an hour- 
 long swoon which could not be lifted. 
 When she could again leave her bed, a 
 great change had taken place in her. She 
 no longer evaded the recollection of Lensky ; 
 the old love was dead, but a new love had 
 risen from the ruins of the old, a new en- 
 lightened love, which was nothing more than 
 a warm, compassionate pardon. 
 
 With the restlessness of those mortally 
 ill, who in vain seek relief, she was again 
 driven to leave Geneva, where at first she 
 had intended to pass the whole winter. 
 She longed for Rome. 
 
 The physicians laid no difficulties in the 
 way. In the end, a dying person has the 
 right to seek out the place where she will 
 lay down her weary head for the last time. 
 
 In Rome, it seemed at first as if she 
 would be better again. At the end of
 
 Asbem. 327 
 
 March, Nikolas came to visit her. He was 
 now a young man, tall, slender, with great 
 dreamy eyes in an aristocratically cut face, 
 and with pretty, still somewhat embarrassed 
 manners. 
 
 Already he had twice come to foreign 
 countries to visit his mother, but never had 
 she been so glad to see him. 
 
 As the day was beautiful, and she felt 
 better than usual, she proposed a drive. 
 " To the Via Giulia," she ordered the coach- 
 man. " I will show you the Palazzo Mor- 
 sini, in which we lived when your father 
 was betrothed to me," she said to her chil- 
 dren. Mascha looked at her mother in 
 astonishment ; it was the first time in quite 
 three years that she had mentioned her 
 father before her. 
 
 So they drove in the Via Giulia, on a 
 bright March afternoon they drove there. 
 But Natalie in vain sought the Palazzo 
 Morsini; she did not find it. A pile of rub- 
 bish stood in its place, surrounded by a 
 board fence. Disappointed almost to tears,
 
 328 Asbe'in. 
 
 with that childish, foolish disappointment 
 such as only those mortally ill know, she 
 turned away. On the way, it occurred to 
 her to order the coachman to stop at the 
 Trevi fountain. She quite started with 
 delight when she saw the irregular collec- 
 tion of statues again. " Here I met your 
 father for the first time in Rome ; it is just 
 twenty years ago," said she, and rested 
 a strange, brilliant, dreamy glance on the 
 old wall. The sculpturing was still blacker 
 and more weather-worn than twenty years 
 before, but the silver cascade rushed down 
 more arrogantly than ever in the gray stone 
 basin, and the sky, which arched over the 
 time-blackened walls, was as blue as for- 
 merly. " Ah, how much beauty, nobility, 
 and immortality there still is in the world^ 
 together with the bad that passes away," 
 murmured Natalie, softly ; then passing her 
 hand over her eyes, and as if speaking to 
 herself, she added : " It is thus with great 
 men, and therefore I think, considerately 
 overlooking their earthly failings, one
 
 Asbe'in. 329 
 
 should rejoice over that which is immortal 
 in them ! " 
 
 Maschenka had not quite understood 
 the words, but Nikolas sought by a glance 
 the eyes of his mother, and raised her hand 
 to his lips. 
 
 It was evening of the same day, in Nata- 
 lie's pretty apartment on the Piazza di 
 Spagna, opposite the church of Trinita dei 
 Monti, and the sick woman, relieved of her 
 constricting and heavy street-clothes, lay, in 
 a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, on a lounge. 
 Mother and son were alone. He had read 
 her a couple of verses from Musset, which 
 she particularly loved les souvenirs but it 
 had become dark during the reading ; he 
 laid the book away. For a while they were 
 both quiet, silently happy in each other's 
 presence, as very nearly related people when 
 they are together after a long separation ; 
 but then Nikolas laid his hand on that of 
 his mother and said, softly : " Little mother 
 do you know that it was really papa who 
 sent me to you ?"
 
 33O Asbe'in. 
 
 The hand of the mother trembles, and 
 softly draws itself out from under the son's. 
 Nikolas is silent. But what was that ? 
 After a while his mother's hand voluntarily 
 stole back into his, and the young man con- 
 tinued : "Yes, papa sent me here, so that I 
 might accurately report to him how you 
 are. You really cannot imagine how he 
 always asks after you, worries about you." 
 
 The hand of the poor woman trembles in 
 that of her son, like an aspen leaf. After a 
 pause, quite as if he had waited so that his 
 words might sink warmly and deeply into 
 her heart, he continues : " Father com- 
 missioned me to bring before you a request 
 from him namely, whether you would not 
 permit him to visit you ?" 
 
 Again Natalie drew her hand away from 
 her son, but more hastily than the first time. 
 Her breath comes quickly and pantingly, 
 for a few moments she remains silent, then 
 she says slowly, wearily: "No! it must 
 not be; tell him all love and kindness from 
 me, and that I think only with emotion of
 
 Asbe'in. 331 
 
 the great consideration which he always 
 shows me, but it must not be it is better 
 so! " 
 
 After she had made this decision, which 
 had a sad and intimidating effect upon the 
 inexperienced boy, she remained for the 
 rest of the evening taciturn and with that, 
 out of temper and irritable, as one had 
 never formerly seen her. 
 
 In the night she had one of her fearful 
 attacks ; the doctor must be sent for. 
 When the horrible oppression of breath and 
 shuddering had subsided, as usual, she fell 
 into a condition of pale, cold numbness, 
 which resembled a deep swoon. 
 
 Nikolas, who had watched by the sick 
 one, accompanied the physician without. 
 He begged him, in the name of his father, 
 to tell him the truth about the condition of 
 the sufferer. The physician told him that 
 her condition was very serious, and a re- 
 covery absolutely out of the question. It 
 might last a few weeks still, perhaps only a 
 few days.
 
 332 Asbein, 
 
 When Nikolas, with difficulty restraining 
 his tears, came up to his mother's bed, she 
 lay exactly in the same position as when he 
 left the room ; still, something about her 
 had changed. Her eyes were closed, but 
 around her beautiful mouth trembled a 
 smile whose happy loveliness he never for- 
 got. 
 
 After a while she looked up and said in a 
 quite weak voice : " Perhaps only a few 
 days" she had heard the doctor's speech. 
 After a pause, she added : " Write your 
 father write he must hurry only a few 
 more days ! " 
 
 Nikolas telegraphed to St. Petersburg. 
 
 The consciousness of her near death had 
 given her back her lack of embarrassment 
 toward Lensky. She insisted that he should 
 stay in her house, that they should prepare 
 a room for him. 
 
 One day she was well enough to overlook 
 the preparations herself. But the improve- 
 ment did not last. Quite every night came
 
 Asbe'in. 333 
 
 on an attack, shorter and weaker, but still 
 very painful ; in between she slept, and 
 always had the same dream. It seemed to 
 her as if she could fly, but only about two 
 feet from the ground; if she wished to rise 
 higher, she awoke. Of the young happi- 
 ness of her love, she dreamed never more. 
 
 Lensky had telegraphed back that he 
 would set out immediately. They counted 
 the days and nights which must elapse be- 
 fore his arrival Kolia and she ; they con- 
 sulted railroad time-tables together so 
 long to Eydtkuhnen so long to Berlin 
 so long to Vienna so long to Rome. 
 They were twelve hours apart in their reck- 
 oning. Natalie expected Lensky already 
 on the morning of the fifth day, Nikolas 
 not until the evening. 
 
 On the fourth day she was so well that 
 she wished to undertake a walk. " I would 
 so like to see the spring once more," said she. 
 
 Nikolas begged her to save herself until 
 his father had come, in order not to aggra-
 
 334 Asbe'in. 
 
 vate her heart by excitement that great, 
 rich heart through which she lived, and of 
 which she was now dying. " We will bring 
 the spring in to you," said he tenderly. 
 
 They brought flowers, whatever kind 
 they could buy, and placed them in the 
 pretty, pleasant boudoir in which she lay, 
 stretched out on her couch bed. "The broad 
 sunbeams slid like a golden veil over the 
 magnolias, violets, and roses. 
 
 Dreamily the dying woman let her eyes 
 wander over the fragrant splendor. " How 
 lovely the spring is ! " murmured she, and 
 then she added : " How can one fear to 
 die, when the resurrection is so beautiful ! " 
 The windows stood wide open ; it was after- 
 noon ; from without one heard the rattling 
 of carriages which rolled along in the heart 
 of the city. 
 
 It sounded like the rolling of a stream 
 which forced its way to the sea. 
 
 The night came. Nikolas sat near his 
 mother's bed and watched. She slept un-
 
 Asbe'in. 335 
 
 easily. Frequently she started and listened, 
 then she looked at her watch it could not 
 yet be ! Once Maschenka came in, with 
 little bare feet peeping out from under her 
 long night-dress, and face quite swollen with 
 weeping. On tip-toes she crept up to the 
 dying woman's bed. Since a couple of days 
 Natalie had no longer permitted her to sleep 
 in the adjoining little room, from fear that 
 the child might be awakened by her painful 
 attacks. Maschenka had dreamed that her 
 mother was worse ; she wished to see her 
 mother. Natalie opened her eyes just as 
 she entered. 
 
 Then the child ran up to her, kneeled down 
 near her, and sobbing hid her little face in 
 the covers. Natalie stroked her little head 
 with weary, weak hand, and asked her to be 
 brave, and lie down and sleep ; that would 
 give her the greatest joy. 
 
 Then Maschenka stood up, and went 
 with hesitating steps as far as the door ; 
 then she turned round, and hurried back 
 to her mother. Natalie made the sign
 
 336 Asbein. 
 
 of the cross on her forehead, then kissed 
 her once more, and held her to her thin 
 breast. It should be the last time the 
 child went. 
 
 Natalie looked after her tenderly, sadly. 
 
 Toward morning Nikolas fell asleep in 
 the arm-chair in which he watched by his 
 mother's bed. All at once he felt that some 
 one pulled him by both sleeves. He started 
 up ; his mother sat half upright in the bed. 
 
 " Wake up, your father is coming ! " she 
 called quickly and breathlessly. 
 
 " But, little mother, it is quite impossible 
 not before evening can he be here." 
 
 With a short, imperious motion she ad- 
 monished him to silence. Now he heard 
 quite plainly softly, then louder the roll- 
 ing of a single carriage through the deathly- 
 quiet, sleeping city. It came nearer 
 stopped before the house. 
 
 "Go to meet him, Kolia; I do not wish 
 him to think we did not expect him." 
 
 Kolia went, did, like a machine, whatever 
 was required of him. Natalie sat up, list-
 
 Asbein. 337 
 
 ened listened. If she had been mistaken 
 no. Heavy steps came up the stairs. 
 Steps of two men not of one and this 
 voice ! rough, deep, going to the heart. 
 She did not understand a word ; but it was 
 his voice. 
 
 A quite numbing embarrassment and 
 shyness overcame her. She drew the lace 
 cuffs of her night-dress over her thin arms, 
 she arranged her hair ; she felt as shy as be- 
 fore a stranger. What should she say to 
 him? She would be quite calm calm and 
 friendly. Then the door opened he en- 
 tered, dusty, with tumbled, badly arranged 
 gray hair, with fearful furrows in his face, 
 aged ten years since she last had seen him. 
 
 What should she say to him ? 
 
 He did not wait for that ; he only gave 
 one look at her pale face, then he hurried 
 up to her and took her in his arms. 
 
 Behind the church of Trinita dei Monti 
 there was already a golden light, and the 
 whole room was filled with brilliancy and 
 light.
 
 338 Asbein. 
 
 " Oh, my angel ! how could you so repulse 
 me ! " are the first words which he speaks. 
 
 She says nothing, only lies on his breast, 
 silently, unresistingly. Through her veins 
 creeps for the last time the feeling of pleas- 
 ant, animating warmth which has always 
 overcome her in his nearness. She tries to 
 rouse herself, to consider ; she had certainly 
 wished to tell him something for farewell. 
 But what was it what 
 
 Ah, truly ! 
 
 " Boris," she breathes out softly, " do you 
 know at that time in your study in Pe- 
 tersburg do you still remember how you 
 once said to me I should show you the way 
 to the stars?" 
 
 " Yes, my little dove, yes." 
 
 " I was not fitted for my task," whispers 
 she, sadly ; " forgive ! " 
 
 For one moment he remains speechless 
 with emotion ; then he presses his lips to 
 her mouth, on her poor emaciated hands, 
 on her hair. 
 
 " Forgive I you ! O my heart ! " mur-
 
 Asbein. 339 
 
 murs he. " How could you draw me up 
 when I had broken your wings ! But now 
 all is well ; we will seek our old happiness 
 hand in hand. You shall become well, shall 
 live ! " 
 
 " Live," whispers she, quite reproach- 
 fully ; " live," and shakes her head. 
 
 He looks at her with a long, tender 
 glance, and is frightened. 
 
 Her face is still angel beautiful, but there 
 is nothing left of her lovely form. It pains 
 him to see the sharp, harsh lines which out- 
 line her limbs under the covering. That is 
 no longer a living woman who stretches out 
 her arms to him, it is only an angel who 
 wishes to bless him. It is quite clear be- 
 tween them, and also the last shyness, 
 which still held her back from him, has 
 vanished. 
 
 " Yes, it is over," whispers she ; " only a 
 few more days how many is that ? three 
 days five days oh, perhaps it will last 
 longer physicians are so often mistaken. 
 We will drive out once more together to
 
 340 Asbe'in. 
 
 see the spring out there where the almond 
 trees bloom between the ruins by St. 
 Steven, do you still know ? and until I feel 
 it coming the last, the end then you will 
 hold me by the hand, will you not ? like a 
 child that fears the dark, you will lead me 
 quite tenderly up to the threshold of eter- 
 nity is it not true? No one can be so 
 tender and loving as you. But do not be 
 sad not now ; to-day I feel well, quite 
 well. Ah ! " 
 
 What is that? She clutches at her heart 
 there it is again, the strange fluttering 
 feeling in her heart. Her face changes, her 
 breath fails. 
 
 " The doctor, Kolia ! " calls Boris beside 
 himself. 
 
 Kolia hurries away ; at the door his 
 mother calls him back once more. 
 
 " Not without a farewell, my brave boy," 
 she says, and kisses him. " God bless you ! " 
 
 Then he rushes away down the stairs, to 
 fetch the doctor there is haste. 
 
 No, there is no more haste the attack is
 
 Asbcin. 341 
 
 short only a couple of strange shudders 
 then the invalid grows calm in Lensky's 
 arms. 
 
 " How wonderfully the trees bloom " 
 murmurs the dying one. " It grows dark 
 give me your hand do not grieve my 
 poor Genius " 
 
 Suddenly her eyes take on a peculiarly 
 longing expression. A last time the Asbein 
 tones glide through her soul, but no longer 
 an inciting, alluring call but as something 
 elevating, holy. She hears the tones quite 
 high and distinct, as if they vibrated down 
 to her from Heaven, resounding strangely 
 in a sublime, calm harmony that is no longer 
 the devil's succession of tones, that is the 
 music of the spheres. 
 
 " Boris," she murmurs, and raising her 
 hand, points upward, " listen . . ." 
 
 The hand sinks slowly, slowly when, a 
 little later, the physician enters she is dead. 
 A wonderful smile lies on her countenance, 
 the smile of one set free.

 
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