Asbeïn: From the Life of a Virtuoso. Ossip Schubin

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СКАЧАТЬ Z., and the boldness of that parvenu 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 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 attentive faces around a table whose edge they could just surround with hands stretched out as far as possible.

      Those present who did not directly participate in the attempt to bewitch the table, stood around observing the interesting round surface.

      But the table continued in a state of desperately exciting passivity.

      Lensky, usually specially invited to soirées, of which he formed the centre of attraction, felt humiliated by the four-legged wooden rival, who, to-day, took all the attention away from him.

      At last the old French woman turned to the observation of the table, which permitted the young girl to devote herself a little to Lensky, rapidly becoming more gloomy; then the door opened and the butler announced Count Pachotin. The virtuoso felt not at all pleasantly toward the young dandy when he asked him unusually kindly and sympathetically whether he was contented with the result of his last concert tour.

      After Pachotin had fulfilled the condescension, which as a finely cultivated nobleman 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 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 answered 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.

      "Vous partez déjà?" asked Natalie, coming up to the virtuoso.

      "I am no longer needed," said Lensky, with a glance at the table, and bowed without 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. p. 23.

      "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 encouragingly. He turned away his head and went.

      "Perhaps in reality she is only like the others, but still she is bewitching!" he murmured, as he stumbled down the old marble steps of the palace in the darkness.

      * * * * * *

      Yes, she was bewitching. Many still remember 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 à 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 admired 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 squandered. She never complained; she only 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 factotum, 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 punctiliousness and never being able to find the keys; for which reason the locksmith must be frequently 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 Frenchman and valet of the deceased prince, Monsieur Baptiste was not only outwardly decorative, but of a useful nature. His principal occupation consisted in sitting in the vestibule, with finely-shaved upper lip and imposing 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 say, he in all haste wrapped and squeezed his effects together in any manner and threw them in his trunk as one throws potatoes in a sack. Then he ordered his bill from the waiter and a carriage for the next morning. When the waiter at the appointed hour presented the bill and announced the carriage he showed him out. From ten o'clock on he drew out his chronometer every quarter of an hour; at twelve he appeared in the Palazzo Morsini.

      "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 concealed. What was it? Something sweet, perhaps something tender, earnest--or only a gay triumph or СКАЧАТЬ