Part 4 (1/2)

”Yes,” replied Liza, after a moment's hesitation. ”You do not please her.”

Pans.h.i.+ne let his fingers run rapidly over the keys; a scarcely perceptible smile glided over his lips.

”Well, but you,” he continued, ”do you also think me an egotist?”.

”I know so little about you,” replied Liza; ”but I should not call you an egotist. On the contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you--”

”I know, I know what you are going to say,” interrupted Pans.h.i.+ne, again running his fingers over the keys, ”for the music, for the books, which I bring you, for the bad drawings with which I ornament your alb.u.m, and so on, and so on. I may do all that, and yet be an egotist. I venture to think that I do not bore you, and that you do not think me a bad man; but yet you suppose that I--how shall I say it?--for the sake of an epigram would not spare my friend, my father him self.”

”You are absent and forgetful, like all men of the world,” said Liza, ”that is all.”

Pans.h.i.+ne slightly frowned.

”Listen,” he said; ”don't let's talk any more about me; let us begin our sonata. Only there is one thing I will ask of you,” he added, as he smoothed the sheets which lay on the music-desk with his hand; ”think of me what you will, call me egotist even, I don't object to that; but don't call me a man of the world, that name is insufferable.

_Anch'io sono pittore_. I too am an artist, though but a poor one, and that--namely, that I am a poor artist--I am going to prove to you on the spot. Let us begin.”

”Very good, let us begin,” said Liza.

The first adagio went off with tolerable success, although Pans.h.i.+ne made several mistakes. What he had written himself, and what he had learnt by heart, he played very well, but he could not play at sight correctly. Accordingly the second part of the sonata--tolerably quick allegro--would not do at all. At the twentieth bar Pans.h.i.+ne, who was a couple of bars behind, gave in, and pushed back his chair with a laugh.

”No!” he exclaimed, ”I cannot play to-day. It is fortunate that Lemm cannot hear us; he would have had a fit.”

Liza stood up, shut the piano, and then turned to Pans.h.i.+ne.

”What shall we do then?” she asked.

”That question is so like you! You can never sit with folded hands for a moment. Well then, if you feel inclined, let's draw a little before it becomes quite dark. Perhaps another Muse--the Muse of painting--what's her name? I've forgotten--will be more propitious to me. Where is your alb.u.m? I remember the landscape I was drawing in it was not finished.”

Liza went into another room for the alb.u.m, and Pans.h.i.+ne, finding himself alone, took a cambric handkerchief out of his pocket, rubbed his nails and looked sideways at his hands. They were very white and well shaped; on the second finger of the left hand he wore a spiral gold ring.

Liza returned; Pans.h.i.+ne seated himself by the window and opened the alb.u.m.

”Ah!” he exclaimed, ”I see you have begun to copy my landscape--and capitally--very good indeed--only--just give me the pencil--the shadows are not laid in black enough. Look here.”

And Pans.h.i.+ne added some long strokes with a vigorous touch. He always drew the same landscape--large dishevelled trees in the foreground, in the middle distance a plain, and on the horizon an indented chain of hills. Liza looked over his shoulder at his work.

”In drawing, as also in life in general,” said Pans.h.i.+ne, turning his head now to the right, now to the left, ”lightness and daring--those are the first requisites.”

At this moment Lemm entered the room, and after bowing gravely, was about to retire; but Pans.h.i.+ne flung the alb.u.m and pencil aside, and prevented him from leaving the room.

”Where are you going, dear Christoph Fedorovich? Won't you stay and take tea?”

”I am going home,” said Lemm, in a surly voice; ”my head aches.”

”What nonsense! do remain. We will have a talk about Shakspeare.”

”My head aches,” repeated the old man.

”We tried to play Beethoven's sonata without you,” continued Pans.h.i.+ne, caressingly throwing his arm over the old man's shoulder and smiling sweetly; ”but we didn't succeed in bringing it to a harmonious conclusion. Just imagine, I couldn't play two consecutive notes right.”