kly.

"Isn't it all the same? Of what need names? And so, when he and I were
singing, I felt all of me in the sway of genius. How wonderfully, into
what a marvelous harmony, did our voices blend! Ah! It is impossible to
describe this impression. Probably, it happens but once in a lifetime.
According to the role, I had to weep, and I wept with sincere, genuine
tears. And when, after the curtain, he walked up to me and patted my
hair with his big warm hand and with his enchanting, radiant smile
said, 'Splendid! for the first time in my life have I sung so' ... and
so I--and I am a very proud being--I kissed his hand. And the tears
were still standing in my eyes ..."

"And the third?" asked the baroness, and her eyes lit up with the evil
sparks of jealousy.

"Ah, the third," answered the artiste sadly, "the third is as simple as
simple can be. During the last season I lived at Nice, and so I saw
Carmen on the open stage at Frejus with the anticipation of Cecile
Ketten, who is now," the artiste earnestly made the sign of the cross,
"dead--I don't really know, fortunately or unfortunately for herself?"

Suddenly, in a moment, her magnificent eyes filled with tears and began
to shine with a magic green light, such as the evening star gives
forth, on warm summer twilights. She turned her face around to the
stage, and for some time her long, nervous fingers convulsively
squeezed the upholstery of the barrier of the box. But when she again
turned around to her friends, her eyes were already dry, and the
enigmatic, vicious and wilful lips were resplendent with an
unconstrained smile.

Then Ryazanov asked her politely, in a tender but purposely calm tone:

"But then, Ellena Victorovna, your tremendous fame, admirers, the roar
of the mob ... finally, that delight which you afford to your
spectators. Is it possible that even this does not titillate your
nerves?"

"No, Ryazanov," she answered in a tired voice. "You know no less than
myself what this is worth. A brazen interviewer, who needs passes for
his friends, and, by the way, twenty-five roubles in an envelope. High
school boys and girls, students and young ladies attending courses, who
beg you for autographed photographs. Some old blockhead with a
general's rank, who hums loudly with me during my aria. The eternal
whisper behind you, when you pass by: 'there she is, that same famous
one!' Anonymous letters, the brazenness of back-stage habitues ... why,
you can't enume