us gift of God--she possessed an instinctive,
inherent ability very exactly, beautifully, and always originally, to
carry on the second voice. There came a time toward the end of their
acquaintance, when Liubka did not beg the prince, but the prince
Liubka, to sing some one of the beloved songs of the people, of which
she knew a multitude. And so, putting her elbow on the table, and
propping up her head with her palm, like a peasant woman, she would
start off to the cautious, painstaking, quiet accompaniment:

"Oh, the nights have grown tiresome to me, and wearisome;
To be parted from my dearie, from my mate!
Oh, haven't I myself, woman-like, done a foolish thing--
Have stirred up the wrath of my own darling:
When I did call him a bitter drunkard! ..."

"Bitter drunkard!" the prince would repeat the last words together with
her, and would forlornly toss his curly head, inclined to one side; and
they both tried to end the song so that the scarcely seizable quivering
of the guitar strings and the voice might by degrees grow quiet, and
that it might not be possible to note when the sound ended and the
silence came.

But then, in the matter of THE PANTHER'S SKIN, the work of the famous
Georgian poet Rustavelli, prince Nijeradze fell down completely. The
beauty of the poem, of course, consisted in the way it sounded in the
native tongue; but scarcely would he begin to read in sing-song his
throaty, sibilant, hawking phrases, when Liubka would at first shake
for a long time from irresistible laughter; then, finally, burst into
laughter, filling the whole room with explosive, prolonged peals. Then
Nijeradze in wrath would slam shut the little tome of the adored
writer, and swear at Liubka, calling her a mule and a camel. However,
they soon made up.

There were times when fits of goatish, mischievous merriment would come
upon Nijeradze. He would pretend that he wanted to embrace Liubka,
would roll exaggeratedly passionate eyes at her, and would utter with a
theatrically languishing whisper:

"Me soul! The best rosa in the garden of Allah! Honey and milk are upon
thy lips, and thy breath is better than the aroma of kabob. Give me to
drink the bliss of Nirvanah from the goblet of thy lips, O thou, my
best Tifflissian she-goat!"

But she would laugh, get angry, strike his hands, and threaten to
complain to Lichonin.

"V-va!" the prince would spread out his hands. "What is Lichonin?
Lichonin is my frie