Lensky

“ What was Paul Lensky to her, but an unfulfilled possibility to which he, Brangwen, was the reality and the fulfilment? What did it matter, that Anna Lensky was born of Lydia and Paul? God was her father and her mother. ”

“ Lensky never carries a groschen of money about with him.
"Madame cannot be seen," replies the servant at the house-door. Then a charming figure in a short, dark blue dress rushes down four, five steps at a time to the virtuoso.
"Ah!"
How often the little cry of joy with which his little daughter throws her soft, warm arms round his neck will ring in the ears of the artist as he grows older. And the kiss of her dewy, fresh, innocent lips--will he ever forget it? Mascha has lips like a four-year-old child.
"Papa! Colia! How lovely that you are both here, but how late!" ”

“ 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 herself.
"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; 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. ”

“ 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 vestibule, from which the servant conducted him through a heavy portière, painted with coats of arms as high as a man, into an immense drawing-room with soiled and faded yellow damask hangings and furniture. ”

“ Lensky, who had just accompanied some 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, children, 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?" ”

“ I know her better than you, for I have had more opportunity to observe her, and I tell you it is really dangerous to leave Mascha with people who will trouble themselves as little about her as the Jeliagins."
"You exaggerate, you exaggerate," grumbled Lensky. "Besides, how can I help it? Shall I shut up my song-bird in a cage, in a convent or a boarding-school? I tried it. She would not bear it. What shall I do with her?"
"Take her with you," says Nikolai.
"With me! That is impossible," bursts out Lensky--"impossible! What can a widower do with a grown daughter?" ”

“ Lensky did not move.
"Go!" said she, severely; and her hand no longer trembled, and her gesture was more imperious, more proud.
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 has grown thin, the furrows in his forehead are deeper, his hair is gray. He has aged greatly. But how well it becomes him! The lovable, benevolent expression of the lips, the patient, one might almost say pardoning, sadness of his gaze.
"Father! You--what a surprise!" fairly rejoices Nikolai, and rushes in the arms which his father stretches out to him. And Lensky, however spoiled he is otherwise, each time rejoices anew when his children show their love for him. ”

“ Lensky assures him earnestly, and adds: "See, see how you thaw; you grow quite animated, dreamer." He is silent awhile, then he begins again: "Does she receive much company?"
"No; she sees as few people as possible."
"Ah!" says Lensky, with the triumphant expression of a hunter who has at length found the trace which he has long sought.
"She does not go into society, because conventional society is too tedious, too unmeaning for her," Nikolai hastily assures him.
"They all say that," replies Lensky, shaking his head. ”

“ Men appear sparsely. They form scarcely a third part of the numerous guests.
Lensky has been playing for more than an hour. The women crowd around him so that he has scarcely room to move his arm. His eyes wander about him. He sees a confusion of bare necks, of brilliant eyes, of half-parted lips. The sight goes to his head. The most insane flatteries are repeated to him. He feels twenty years younger; a triumphant insolence overpowers him. ”

“ Lensky has appeared upon the stage; he bows solemnly, benevolently. He does not know that he has played badly, and is pleased at the enthusiasm.
Spatzig still whispers to the Countess Löwenskiold and holds his sides with laughter. The Russians are wild. It is too bad; Madame Spatzig makes a little attempt--only from petulance--behind her fan, so that no one perceives it; she begins to hiss. Then around her through the whole room, louder and louder, resounds the cutting, scornful sound, louder, ever louder. ”

“ 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 smiling, when he reëntered the room. "You are quite heated!" ”

“ In this moment Nikolai feels almost a kind of horror for his father.
"You cannot know of whom you speak," says he, icily; "it is a question of a young girl of very good family."
"I know very well of whom I speak," replies Lensky, vexed at his son's admonition. "It is a question of a young artist who, separated from her family, goes her own way. I cannot possibly expect of such a gifted exception that she will be restrained by the same prejudices as any little goose."
The blood rushes to Nikolai's cheeks. ”

“ The old princess presided in a wrapper. The lukewarm 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 faïence service with noticeable correctness. A broad golden sunbeam lay on the table between Lensky and Natalie and gave the most extravagantly unsuitable 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. ”

“ He went up to Nikolai's room. Nikolai stood before the fire-place and busied himself with tearing and burning some letters. A new, harsh, stiff expression hardens his features. When he perceives his father, his face expresses uneasiness and astonishment, so that Lensky's heart grows cold. For one moment they stand silently opposite each other. "Colia!" ”

“ He has studied with distinction; he has never made debts; he is scarcely twenty-three years old, attaché to the Russian embassy in Paris, and a thoroughly good fellow. What more can Lensky wish, what does he miss in Nikolai? A little imprudent enthusiasm, hot-blooded frivolity, a little youthfulness--that he misses in him. Nikolai is old at twenty-three.
And then these perpetual well-bred manners. Lensky could never bear men of the world, and Nikolai is one; that enrages him. ”

“ You have changed greatly, my angel; you have grown and are stouter, and the old round-cheeked, childish face is no more--you have become a beautiful woman, very beautiful." His glance wanders proudly over her tall, superb figure. "Your husband may be satisfied with you."
"He is always very good to me," assures Mascha, blushing slightly.
"Good to you!" repeats Lensky, bending forward, while his glance becomes more piercing, more attentive. "Yes, yes; you have always praised him greatly in your letters, and you often write me of your happiness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You see all in the same light."
"In the light of my experience, Colia, in the light of truth. I cannot help it if the world is as it is. The depth of our whole nature is mire, and nothing but mire!"
"Do not speak so inconsolably, father; I cannot bear it," says Nikolai, quite supplicatingly. "There is much that is beautiful everywhere, also in your life. Think of your art!"
"Of my art?" says Lensky. ”

“ Mascha raised it from the pillows. It looked very charming in its white night-dress, with its delicate blond head where one could yet see the skin under the golden-brown curls.
"Give grandpa a kiss, Natascha--that is, if you are not afraid of a wet little mouth, papa," said Mascha.
"She is very large for her age," said Lensky, after he had taken the child, who did not show the slightest fear of him, in his arms.
"I believe you," replies Mascha, proudly. "But give her to the nurse. She will bore you, and, besides, she must be dressed." ”

“ I tell you truly, in the superficial musical world which here forms the decisive part of the audience, a great prejudice against you prevails. The hearty enthusiasm which everywhere else meets you is here limited to one or two hundred of your old admirers in the strangers' colony. So! There you have the situation." Perfection is silent.
Lensky's lips have drawn themselves ever more deeply down at the corners; his nostrils quiver, he passes his hand uneasily over the table between himself and Perfection. ”

“ Mascha fought back tears. "It is terrible to look on. He is not to be recognized; five months ago he was quite different. If one only could prevent him from playing. I am convinced he will experience something annoying."
"Yes, if one could only prevent him," murmured Nikolai.
Meanwhile Lensky had entered the drawing-room. A correctly dressed, well-bred looking blond man came to meet him, with the exclamation: "Welcome, heartily welcome to Rome!" ”

“ Natascha had on an embroidered white dress in honor of his arrival. Mascha declared that she recognized him; at any rate, she displayed the utmost friendliness. When he took her in his arms she passed her tiny hands caressingly over his rough, wrinkled cheeks, and the old man rejoiced in the fresh young bud, and could not kiss her enough.
But the family reunion was not so happy and cheerful as Mascha had dreamed. A weight lay on all. Lensky, who formerly had never felt the slightest fatigue from travelling, was to-day so weary that his hands trembled. ”

“ One feels that the girl has been desecrated by no grovelling curiosity, no passionate dreams; that she is perfectly unconscious of her physical maturity.
"You are not as beautiful as your mother was," says Lensky after awhile.
"No one else is as beautiful; but that is not necessary," says Mascha, now really troubled. "But--but do I not, then, please you at all?"
"You foolish little goose, do you believe that?" says Lensky, drawing his daughter to him. "We will not tease you any longer, eh, Colia? We will at last tell her quite simply that she looks charming. ”

“ She was about to make a very positive assertion, when a slender, fashionably dressed man, with a very high hat and faultless 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 Pachotin, 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. ”

“ What did this little pianist permit himself? Formerly his accompanist had waited until he gave him his hand. Perfection noticed the old man's vexation. He was ready to pacify him. The news that Lensky would give a concert in Rome had at first caused him some excitement. Now, when he saw him before him, his excitement changed to compassion--the noble garment in which the triumphant ambition of young, aspiring mediocrity prefers to clothe itself to a vanquished great one. The broken old man with the round shoulders and trembling hands could no longer injure him. ”

“ Lensky, very ardent and full of words, went about inciting his countrymen. Little Poles flamed down the streets of Warsaw, on the way to shoot every Muscovite. So they crossed into the south of Russia, and it was common for six little insurgents to ride into a Jewish village, brandishing swords and words, emphasizing the fact that they were going to shoot every living Muscovite.
Lensky was something of a fire-eater also. Lydia, tempered by her German blood, coming of a different family, was obliterated, carried along in her husband's emphasis of declaration, and his whirl of patriotism. ”