its soft, warm sounds, drew Liubka more than
the irritating, metallic bleating of the mandolin. When Nijeradze would
come to them as a guest (three or four times a week, in the evening),
she herself would take the guitar down from the wall, painstakingly
wipe it off with a handkerchief, and hand it over to him. He, having
fussed for some time with the tuning, would clear his throat, put one
leg over the other, negligently throw himself against the back of the
chair, and begin in a throaty little tenor, a trifle hoarse, but
pleasant and true:

"The trea-cha-rous sa-ound av akissing
Resahounds through the quiet night air;
Tuh all fla-ming hearts it is pleasing,
And given tuh each lovin' pair.

For a single mohoment of mee-ting ..."

And at this he would pretend to swoon away from his own singing, shut
his eyes, toss his head in the passionate passages or during the
pauses, tearing his right hand away from the strings; would suddenly
turn to stone, and for a second would pierce Liubka's eyes with his
languorous, humid, sheepish eyes. He knew an endless multitude of
ballads, catches, and old-fashioned, jocose little pieces. Most of all
pleased Liubka the universally familiar Armenian couplets about Karapet:

"Karapet has a buffet,
On the buffet's a confet,
On the confet's a portret--
That's the self-same Karapet."

[22] Anglice, "confet" is a bon-bon; "portret," a portrait.--Trans.

Of these couplets (in the Caucasus they are called kinto-uri--the song
of the peddlers) the prince knew an infinite many, but the absurd
refrain was always one and the same:

"Bravo, bravo, Katenka,
Katerin Petrovna,
Don't you kiss me on the cheek--a,
Kiss the backs of my head."

These couplets Nijeradze always sang in a diminished voice, preserving
on his face an expression of serious astonishment about Karapet; while
Liubka laughed until it hurt, until tears came, until she had nervous
spasms. Once, carried away, she could not restrain herself and began to
chime in with him, and their singing proved to be very harmonious.
Little by little, when she had by degrees completely ceased to be
embarrassed before the prince, they sang together more and more
frequently. Liubka proved to have a very soft and low contralto, even
though thin, on which her past life with its colds, drinking, and
professional excesses had left absolutely no traces. And mainly--which
was already a curio