All was prepared for a cordial, festive reception in the Hotel de l'Europe, the same hotel in which Lensky had lived thirty years before, and in which everything had changed, as all 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 pa.s.sed 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. He left the choicest morsels untouched on his plate, and drank more wine than formerly. He scarcely spoke, often for long moments brooded absent-mindedly, while his deathly pale face took on an intense listening and longing expression which was as weird as mysterious to his children.

When he roused himself, he turned his attention almost exclusively to his son. Incessantly his eyes sought Nikolai's. The young man showed the elder every possible attention, but he could not talk with him.

Meanwhile Mascha did not cease to try to enliven the oppressive mood, whose cause she did not suspect, by all kinds of communications. She told of her Cousin Anna, who had finally married--an American parvenu, whom she treated very badly, and who was very proud of her. He had built her a house in the Champs Elysees, after her personal liking. The house was very large and very handsome. It had room for everything, only not for Anna's mother. Old Madame Jeliagin, who as long as her daughter was unmarried would have spent her last cent to live according to their rank, now begged from one relative to another. "She was with us in Venice for six weeks this winter," said Mascha, "and you will scarcely believe me, I know you are prejudiced against aunt, but I was very happy with her. She is so simple now, and so pitifully modest. She no longer paints, and she ties her cap-strings under her chin. She always jumps up if one wants anything, and waited on my husband as on a Sultan. He was always very good to her, and she admired him immensely.

With me and the children she was of such an old-fashioned, clinging tenderness that it warmed my heart. She has still a very strong family feeling, and told me much of my dear mother. Strange, with so many people their good peculiarities only come to light when they are too old to embitter life with vanity." Mascha smiled. It did Lensky good to see, for the first time in so many years, this healthy, happy expression on her face. Meanwhile she continued:

"Still, I have news of some one who will perhaps interest you more than Aunt Barbe. Whom did I meet to-day on the Corso? Sonia, with her father. You perhaps know that he has recently been made inspector--I do not know the t.i.tle exactly, protector perhaps--of the Ch.o.r.eographic Inst.i.tute in St. Petersburg. He is still the same, fire and flame for culture and beautiful women. Sonia may have much to endure. She bears it all patiently, as she bears everything. Do you know that she has grown much prettier in these five years, Nikolai?"

Nikolai only murmured distractedly: "So, really?" and crumbled his bread.

"Yes, less stout, her face more expressive. She has more manner, and dresses with much taste."

"I always thought her pretty, and one of the best and most sympathetic girls whom I had ever met," said Nikolai, with the emphasis with which men praise girls with whom they feel themselves in the wrong.

"I asked her to visit us to-day. She said she could not come to-day, she expected a friend--Nita Sankjewitch."

Nikolai bit his lips. In this moment that vein of loathing for his father rose again in him. Suddenly he felt something peculiar. He raised his eyes and met his father's. A shudder ran over him. So much anxious, supplicating sadness was in this glance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

They were at dessert when a waiter entered and presented a visiting-card to Lensky. Lensky changed color and trembled when he took the card from the salver and read the name.

"What does he want here?" he burst out violently, without restraining himself before the waiter.

"Who is it?" asked Mascha, in Russian.

"Perfection!" Lensky drummed confusedly on the table.

"But, papa, you cannot expect anything else," whispered Mascha, softly.

"He has only shown you a politeness which is your due."

Lensky frowned.

Then Nikolai laid his hand on his arm. "Shall I receive Perfection in your place?" asked he. "I will tell him that you are tired from the journey; he might come later."

At his son's touch Lensky started. His gloomy face lightened. "No, no, my boy; best of thanks, Colia, I am going myself. It only vexed me at first to be torn away from our cosy circle. We will make it short--farewell."

With that he went.

Mascha and Nikolai still remained at table. They looked at each other piercingly. Each wished to read the thoughts of the other from the face.

"How do you find him?" asked Mascha at length.

"Very changed."

"Is he not?" 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!" and stretched out both hands to him.

Lensky negligently took one. Perfection's air of hearty comradeship vexed him. 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 compa.s.sion--the n.o.ble 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. He suddenly felt the most tender reverence for him, and pressed his hand to his lips like that of a priest.

How repulsive such demonstrations would formerly have been to Lensky!

He would have roughly and imperiously rebuffed them. Now this token of submission flattered him. "It was very nice in you to hurry a little to visit me," said he. "H-m--sit down." More he could not say.

"You have no idea what enthusiasm it caused among your adorers when one learned that one might at last greet you again here," began the talkative Perfection.

"Ah! Have you really left me anything?" said Lensky, striking his former accompanist familiarly on the knee.

"Do not humiliate me, master," replied Perfection.

Again Lensky struck him on the knee, and laughed loudly and somewhat constrainedly, although nothing laughable had been said.

"I am very glad--really very glad to see you again," he a.s.sured the pianist.

The latter smiled comprehendingly. "It reminds you of old times, _mon maitre_."

Lensky's face clouded. "Not wholly--h-m!--I must still congratulate you upon your success. I am proud of you--regard you a little as my musical apprentice. Do you give another concert here?"

"No, not at present. I only remained in Rome on your account, master.

You do not know how I long for the sound of your violin. How are you pleased with your pianist?"

Lensky pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead. "As much as one can be with a pianist with whom one has been a.s.sociated for six weeks only. He has not yet learned to think with me. For the rest, he is quite a clever man."

"I begin to be jealous!" cried Perfection.

"It is not necessary. With you it went better--finally. At first I tormented myself enough with you. But--one may say what one will--the piano accompaniment remains always a leaden weight for a violinist.

With the orchestra it fares better, but that is too ceremonious. If I envy the pianist one thing, it is his independence. The accompanists are none of them worth anything--none of them."

"You discourage me, _mon maitre_," cried Perfection. "When I heard of the trouble you had recently with pianists, I wished to place myself at your disposal, at least for your concert here."

Perhaps the offer was really well meant. In any case it was the quintessence of artistic politeness. Instead of thinking of this, Lensky burst out as if Perfection had wished to insult him with his offer, and cried: "So that it might be said the audience at Lensky's performances applauded the accompanist merely, eh?"

An unpleasant silence followed. At last Perfection began with suffocated voice: "As I see, you have read Spatzig's article about me."

"Yes; I even did not grudge you the article from my heart," a.s.sured Lensky, cuttingly. "I am glad for you that you stand so well with the critics."

Perfection looked the furious old man full in the face. Offended innocence and insulted dignity spoke from his face.

"You do me bitter injustice by this allusion," said he, quietly, and with emphasis. "I could not help it that that article was written. I had not read it before it appeared. If I had known of it I would never have given my consent to its publication. I found it tasteless and rough, and did not feel at all flattered by it, but ashamed. It has made me many enemies in Germany. In Rome, on the contrary, where it has been translated into French and Italian and printed in different journals, it has been of use to me, of great use, and you, Lensky"--for the first time Perfection called his former patron briefly by his name, which did not escape the latter--"you, Spatzig's _feuilleton_ has here--understand me correctly, here in Rome, where you have not been heard for thirty years; here, where they rely on Spatzig's judgment--immeasurably injured. 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.