Nita"s sanctum has not caught the fever of acute striving for effect in the adjoining room.
Sophie still paints with the same conscientious industry and touching lack of skill at a skull, and Nita--Nita is quite sunk in the study of a new model, over which she is unusually enthusiastic. The model is none other than the brown-curled child whose acquaintance she recently made on the sidewalk when Nikolai watched her. Just now she has gone to look at the different attempts in the adjoining school, when she hears a short scream, and a rattling, banging noise in her room.
"Pardon me, ladies," says she, while she turns her head and listens; "if I am not mistaken something has come to grief in my room, probably my little Lucca della Robbia. What is it?" says she, opening the door of her studio. A memorable sight meets her eyes then. In the middle of the studio, her little hands clutching her temples with horror, stands a young girl with the face of Ribera"s Maria Egyptiaca, and stares down at a skull which, broken in two pieces, lies at her feet.
"It is only my Cousin Mascha, who is afraid of the skull; she even threw it on the floor," says Sophie, in her wonderfully phlegmatic manner, and with that she stoops down for the pieces to fit them together and put them in their place again.
"Oh! how can you touch the horrid thing?" says Mascha, holding her hands over her eyes, and tapping her foot. "Oh, oh!"
"Poor little thing, how she trembles!" says Nita, compa.s.sionately, while she goes up to Mascha. "Throw your stupid skull in the fire, Sophie. You see that the child cannot bear the sight of it."
"That is very foolish; one should be over that at seventeen. It is very hard to get skulls," replies Sophie, vexedly.
But Nita does not notice that. She has taken Mascha in her arms, and caresses her like a mother who would calm an excited child. "So, dear heart, the ugly thing is gone. You can open your pretty eyes. Poor little soul!"
"Fraulein von Sankjewitch is very good to you," now calls a young man"s voice.
Nita looks up and perceives Nikolai. Evidently the little beauty is his sister. He bows, and turning to Mascha once more, he says: "And now tell Fraulein von Sankjewitch that you are sorry to have been so ill-bred."
Mascha has wiped the tears from her eyes; she looks at Nita touchingly, thankfully; then smiling, with the tender roguishness which adds so much to the charm of her little personality, she says: "I am not sorry.
You would not have been so kind to me if I had been polite, would you?"
And with that she lays her arm somewhat shyly around Nita"s neck and presses her soft lips to the young artist"s smooth cheeks. "I was beside myself," says she. "Ah! I am so afraid of death! If only there was no dying!"
"It is a peculiarity of hers. One must have a little patience with her in that direction," explains Nikolai.
"Give us some tea, Sophie. That will give the child something else to think of," says Nita, without noticing Nikolai"s remark.
To-day, also, she is strikingly stiff and cold to him, so that he asks himself: "What has she against me?" Nevertheless, she warms somewhat in the course of conversation. The young man visibly gains ground with her.
He is decidedly very agreeable in intercourse. He has the quiet manners, easily adapting themselves to circ.u.mstances, of a true gentleman. He talks well, without tasteless chattering. Nita listens to him with interest, asks him all kinds of questions about Russia, and, on the whole, treats him with the indifferent kindness of a fifty-year-old woman to a boy.
The ladies in the next room have long left their work; twilight falls.
Still they talk. Sophie is quiet for the most part, listens, comfortably and idly reclining in her easy-chair, to the conversation of the two persons who are dearest to her, and wonders at them both silently.
But Maschenka, whose mood has completely changed, and who has now become immoderately gay, is not at all content to play the _role_ of silent listener. Every moment her trilling, childish laugh, or some strange little remark, interrupts Nita and Nikolai"s earnest conversation, so that finally Nikolai, who is always afraid that his sister will be misunderstood, remarks:
"My little sister has lately been with relatives who were a little too cold and formal to understand her exaggeration. One must not be astonished if she is at times a little bit wild; she is like a little brook, long held captive by winter, which, after a little bit of sunshine has set it free, now doubly laughs and chatters and foams, because it is so happy to be free of the heavy, oppressive ice. Are you not, little goose?" And he takes Mascha by the chin.
"Do not make excuses because you have a charming sister," Nita hereupon answers him. "I shall be glad if you will bring her to see me very soon again."
* * * * *
If Nikolai"s vexation at his sister"s flight from Arcachon very soon lost itself in tender emotion, on the contrary, the horror which Sergei Alexandrovitch felt at this headlong self-will was of a much more enduring quality. The tender, repentant letter with which Maschenka begged the uncle from whose house she had fled to pardon her over-haste, Sergei left unanswered. To Nikolai"s note which, joined in his sister"s request, tried to excuse Mascha"s fault a little, and asked whether he might, after his father had left Paris, again bring the child to Arcachon, the old bureaucrat replied that there would be no talk of that. The condition of his nerves would not permit him a second time to undertake the oversight of such an unreliable being as Mascha. In his opinion the best thing would be to send her to boarding-school.
This was also Nikolai"s opinion under the circ.u.mstances. For the present a stay in an ordinarily strict school seemed to him decidedly more desirable for Mascha than a continued existence with the Jeliagins.
He even succeeded in winning his father to this view, but when Mascha learned what they planned for her future, she rebelled angrily, desperately, and with anxious, touching tenderness for so long that Lensky, in spite of all his son"s representations, gave way to her. He could not bear to see the little one unhappy. He formally begged her pardon, with caresses and endearing words, that he had proposed anything which had excited and vexed her. Nikolai shrugged his shoulders and was powerless. But Mascha laughed gayly, happy at her victory.
How happy she was at that time--from morning till evening, happy!
Except for the little tear intermezzo, she had never been so happy as in the three weeks which pa.s.sed between her arrival and her father"s departure from Paris.
Every morning he pa.s.sed at his sister-in-law"s house; usually he remained to lunch. He sent his pretty daughter all the wonderfully beautiful floral tributes which enthusiasts sent him, and besides that, indulged her with imprudent, immoderate generosity. Again and again he turned to Nikolai with the same: "Get me something for the child; she is so bewitching when she is pleased. She rejoices like a gipsy!"
"I have something for you, Puss," said he, when he went to see her, after she had greeted him, and handed her a package done up in paper, usually an ornament that was much too costly for her youth.
"Ah! give it to me, papa," and then she tore off the wrapping with the active impatience of a young, playful kitten, and opened the parcel.
Lensky watched her good-naturedly with smiling expectation, like a great child that every day rejoices in playing the same trick--a sparkle of two dark blue eyes, a gay, penetrating cry of joy, and two soft, warm arms are thrown round his neck. But he presses his lips to the great, wonderfully beautiful eyes again and again, and murmurs something tender, incomprehensible, to the girl"s curly hair.
"Really, do you love me much, papa?" said she once, and looked at him in astonishment piercingly at his moved face.
"Have you ever doubted it?"
"Yes, often," she nodded, earnestly. "I thought to love mutually with all one"s heart was only for ordinary people like we others; but a great genius like you only tolerates one love, and sometimes is pleased without really returning it. But no; you really like me!"
"Oh! you foolish little monkey!" murmured he, and kissed each separate dimple in her soft, white, child"s hands.
Sometimes he came at ten o"clock in the morning. At that time he frequently saw Barbara in a spotted morning dress, creeping about the house armed with a duster, polishing and putting everything to rights.
He never saw Anna at such an early hour; at most, he heard her sharp voice wounding her mother by some sharp, insulting expression. Not only did she never help her mother in her domestic activity, no, she shut herself up in her room in order not to see Barbara about it.
But whom Lensky very often found busy about the house with Madame Jeliagin, was Mascha. Enveloped in a large blue ap.r.o.n, she appeared now here, now there, as zealously as gayly trying to a.s.sist her poor, sickly aunt; and what a capable, vigorous a.s.sistance! Her firm young fingers arranged things quite differently from Barbara"s trembling hands. She climbed up on the furniture to remove cobwebs from the picture frames, she polished the mirrors and dusted the ornaments, practical and active as a housemaid by profession, and still laughing with gay, fairy-like grace, as a little princess, as if it were all a joke.
All the servants worshipped her; even the weary, stupid, tormented old Aunt Jeliagin learned to love her. It would be hard not to love this quick, lively, impetuous, but always kind-hearted little girl; only the intolerable Anna did not.
But if one, on the one hand, could think of nothing more enchanting than the girl, glowing with happy, tender young life, on the other hand, one could hardly imagine anything more touching and n.o.ble than Lensky in the hours pa.s.sed with his little daughter.
If he now, as soon as his nature was aroused, lost all restraint, and then the worst part of him showed itself rougher, and less vaguely than formerly--rougher than could be understood in a civilized man--on the other hand, as long as the evil in him slept, he showed himself n.o.bler, more blameless than formerly in his best moments.
What had formerly been united in him was now separated. Nikolai, who frequently accompanied him to the Avenue Wagram, observed him in astonishment.
This was not the same man who in the evening, greedily eating, and with cynical, twinkling eyes, sat between some pair of hysterical enthusiasts, to whom he permitted himself to say all that was coa.r.s.e and familiar--the man with the hard, joyless laugh, the two-sided wit, the shameless scorn of men, and especially women.
No; the Lensky who in the morning took his pretty little daughter in his arms, was a pale, somewhat weary and sad man, a man with a hoa.r.s.e but soft and rather low voice, a man who spoke little, but listened pleasantly, who was always ready to interest himself in the most foolish childishness.
After lunch he usually remained an hour or so, and played with Mascha.
Even his art he involuntarily changed for love of her. The wild fire with which he enslaved his concert audiences was perhaps lacking, but how tender, how delicate, how n.o.ble, became his playing if he felt the gaze of the child"s eyes filled with tears and enthusiasm resting upon him.
She might accompany him! Ah! how proud she was if he called out a hearty word of praise to her in the midst of his playing! And there was no lack of opportunity to applaud her.
Frequently he let her play to him alone on the piano, listened to her with the greatest patience, yes, with true pleasure. He made little conscientious corrections, mingled with jests--really troubled himself seriously with her instruction.
Nikolai, as child and youth, had in vain tormented himself musically, only at length to separate _a l"aimable_ from the piano, the violin, and the "cello. Mascha, on the contrary, was incredibly talented in music. What others attained by weary study, she had inherited. The flexibility of her wrists, the smoothness of her touch, were something at which Lensky could not cease to marvel.
How they rejoiced in each other, father and child!
The only hours of those three weeks disturbed by unrepulsable melancholy were, for Mascha, those which she pa.s.sed at her father"s concerts. Naturally, she never missed one; but, very pretty and tastefully dressed, sat now with Colia, at other times with her aunt, in an especially good place, which was reserved for her, and listened attentively to every tone. In the hall there was no one--no, not even among the many professional violinists who envied him his triumphs--who had more plainly remarked the great change which began to take place in the genial virtuoso than his idolizing daughter. She felt it every time that he played falsely. She could have wept, her breath failed her, she looked around the hall, frightened and yet defiantly.
But unconfusedly the Parisians raved over even the falsest tones with the same enthusiasm. One kindled another with the same madly expressed animation, until at length Mascha persuaded herself that she must have heard falsely from anxiety for her father, and, carried away by the noise, forgot all her grief.