rate everything! But surely, you yourself are often
beset by female psychopathics of the court-room?"

"Yes," said Ryazanov decisively.

"That's all there is to it. But add to that the most terrible thing,
that every time I have come to feel a genuine inspiration, I
tormentingly feel on the spot the consciousness that I'm pretending and
grimacing before people ... And the fear of the success of your rival?
And the eternal dread of losing your voice, of straining it or catching
a cold? The eternal tormenting bother of throat bandages? No, really,
it is heavy to bear renown on one's shoulders."

"But the artistic fame?" retorted the lawyer. "The might of genius!
This, verily, is a true moral might, which is above the might of any
king on earth!"

"Yes, yes, of course you're right, my dear. But fame, celebrity, are
sweet only at a distance, when you only dream about them. But when you
have attained them you feel only their thorns. But then, with what
anguish you feel every dram of their decrease. And I have forgotten to
say something else. Why, we artists undergo a sentence at hard labour.
In the morning, exercises; in the daytime, rehearsals; and then there's
scarcely time for dinner and you're due for the performance. An hour or
so for reading or such diversion as you and I are having now, may be
snatched only by a miracle. And even so... the diversion is altogether
of the mediocre..."

She negligently and wearily made a slight gesture with the fingers of
the hand lying on the barrier.

Volodya Chaplinsky, agitated by this conversation, suddenly asked:

"Yes, but tell me, Ellena Victorovna, what would you want to distract
your imagination and ennui?"

She looked at him with her enigmatic eyes and answered quietly, even a
trifle shyly, it seemed:

"Formerly, people lived more gaily and did not know prejudices of any
sort. Well, it seems to me that then I would have been in my place and
would have lived with a full life. O, ancient Rome!"

No one understood her, save Ryazanov, who, without looking at her,
slowly pronounced in his velvety voice, like that of an actor, the
classical, universally familiar, Latin phrase:

"Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant!"

"Precisely! I love you very much, Ryazanov, because you are a clever
child. You will always catch a thought in its flight; although, I must
say, that this isn't an especially high property of the mind. And
really, two beings come together, the friends of ye