red I thee reproach of jealousy ...
We went apart for aye,
Yet only if with thee
I might but chance to meet! ..
Ah, that with thee I might but chance to meet!

"I weep not nor complain--
To fate I bend my knee...
I know not, if you loved,
So greatly wronging me?
Yet only if with thee
I might but chance to meet! ...
Ah, that with thee I might but chance to meet!"

This tender and passionate ballad, executed by a great artiste,
suddenly reminded all these women of their first love; of their first
fall; of a late leave-taking at a dawn in the spring, in the chill of
the morning, when the grass is gray from the dew, while the red sky
paints the tips of the birches a rosy colour; of last embraces, so
closely entwined, and of the unerring heart's mournful whispers: "No,
this will not be repeated, this will not be repeated!" And the lips
were then cold and dry, while the damp mist of the morning lay upon the
hair.

Silence seized Tamara; silence seized Manka the Scandaliste; and
suddenly Jennka, the most untamable of all the girls, ran up to the
artiste, fell down on her knees, and began to sob at her feet.

And Rovinskaya, touched herself, put her arms around her head and said:

"My sister, let me kiss you!"

Jennka whispered something into her ear.

"Why, that's a silly trifle," said Rovinskaya. "A few months of
treatment and it will all go away."

"No, no, no ... I want to make all of them diseased. Let them all rot
and croak."

"Ah, my dear," said Rovinskaya, "I would not do that in your place."

And now Jennka, the proud Jennka began kissing the knees and hands of
the artiste and was saying:

"Then why have people wronged me so? ... Why have they wronged me so?
Why? Why? Why?"

Such is the might of genius!

The only might which takes into its beautiful hands not the abject
reason, but the warm soul of man! The self-respecting Jennka was hiding
her face in Rovinskaya's dress; Little White Manka was sitting meekly
on a chair, her face covered with a handkerchief; Tamara, with elbow
propped on her knee and head bowed on the palm of her hand, was
intently looking down, while Simeon the porter, who had been looking in
against any emergency, only opened his eyes wide in amazement.

Rovinskaya was quietly whispering into Jennka's very ear:

"Never despair. Sometimes things fall out so badly that there's nothing
for it but to hang one's self--but, just look, to-m