Boris Lensky

e nine o'clock in the morning he has been overwhelmed with visits. At the moment there is no one with him but the gay violinist of yesterday,

turbs the two musicians. All comfort is over for them. Monsieur Paul looks at his watch and d

ggard?" says Lensky, while he stil

times already," remarks Nikolai, "

, as her companion told me, had been hoarse for six months from unhappy love. I did not really learn what she wished to get from me--a stipend, an engagement at the opera in St. Petersburg, or that I should cur

itself by a quite exaggerated deference; in the older by a grumbling roughness. He cannot understand this son. Not that anything about him displeases him; his eyes rest not without pride and satisfaction on the young giant with the slender, delicate hands, the fine, aristocratic face. The most exacting father would be content with this son. He has

s. Lensky could never bear men of the wor

lcome my little tomboy?"

ously," rep

please

i is s

le Lensky b

ith the little one. I was worried. No one can les

straight in hi

Barbara will treat her l

said--" s

e later, in spite of her apparent eccentricities, very well accredited in the Faubourg St. Germain, the warmth with which she defended Mascha may have made some impression. In any case, aunt pleased herself with laughing at Mas

whose protection you are making a career, he who tore us apart--your mother and me. Poor little Mascha! Poor little dove! But she was charming with her foolish, childish anxiety and her

t still they did all win

idi

ed, idiots

you say?" asked

life who will misunderstand her innocence, and that she

s not frivolous; she is given to exaggeration, tender, romantic. And, between ourselves, life is so common, so boundlessly common and dirty, that it seldo

ur Mascha has no more worldly knowledge than a six-year-old child. She do

nders at his son. "Would you wish it otherwise? Not I. No; I wou

Nikolai; "but under the ex

A mother cannot be replaced, least of all, one like hers; there is not another one like her in the world. But otherwise I think

Well cared for! I think she cannot be w

. "Barbara is not a bad woma

atters the step-child in order not to offend the father. If Mascha is to prosper, she must live with people who understand her, who love her, but who are conscientious enough to be severe with her, and to guide her from time to time, tenderly but firmly, in the right way. She is much too gifted, much too obstinate for one to d

elp it? Shall I shut up my song-bird in a cage, in a convent or a boardi

ith you," s

s out Lensky--"impossible! What can

ow strongly you expressed yourself about Kasin, when he sent his daughter ou

has hit its aim. "And you will draw a comparison

ly I did not think of that," he begins; "the

Lensky int

er devils, while he went about the world without troubling himself that his wife, his child, meanwhile suffered from hunger, without asking if they were well or ill; while I"--he drew a deep breath--"while I have tormented myself, worried myself about you my whole life

lai, softly. "Yes, father, you were boundlessly generous to us, and stil

y, harshly, quite repellantly, and loo

h!" repli

rt. He changed color, rose, walked up and down a number of times, and at l

[....than you] and lays his hand over his eyes, then he [...e her, a ...] foot. "I have neglected you, that is true [... ..u] must not imagine--" Again he pauses, [...] after awhile he continues: "As regards Mascha, God knows I should like to have my little lark abo

uld still so torment yourself?" rema

y is

down now," says he. "I have planned that so finely. You could have an old relative, Marie Dimitrievna, for instance, mamma's cousin, who is sympathetic to you, to keep house for you; and under the united influence

your mother, perhaps it would have been different; just at that time, before our separation, I began to be weary of the dancing-bear life: with her, I perhaps could have led a respectable old age. But you knew better what was suited to her than she herself. You pointed out to her what would never have occurred to her of herself, poor angel!--that it was a shame to have patience with me. Please yourself with th

e has Nikolai seen a face which expresses a more incurable sadness. Why does he understand now, just now, in spite of the inco

is son, and in the features of the grown young man he finds something of the dear little face of the boy who used to spring joyfully out to meet him when he came home, who was so proud if he could show his father the slightest service, who boasted so imposingly to his playmates of his

t had made him old before his time. From his sixteenth year, and before that, he had carried about wit

shoulders and draws him to his b