and that she was not
receiving any one. Again Tamara was compelled to write on a piece of
paper:

"I come to you from her who once, in a house which is not spoken of
loudly, cried, standing before you on her knees, after you had sung the
ballad of Dargomyzhsky. Your kind treatment of her was so splendid. Do
you remember? Do not fear--she has no need of any one's help now:
yesterday she died. But you can do one very important deed in her
memory, which will be almost no trouble to you at all. While I--am that
very person who permitted herself to say a few bitter truths to the
baroness T--, who was then with you; for which truths I am remorseful
and apologize even now."

"Hand this over!" she ordered the chambermaid.

She returned after two minutes.

"The madam requests you. They apologize very much that they will
receive you not fully dressed."

She escorted Tamara, opened a door before her and quietly shut it.

The great artiste was lying upon an enormous ottoman, covered with a
beautiful Tekin rug and a multitude of little silk pillows, and soft
cylindrical bolsters of tapestry. Her feet were wrapped up in silvery,
soft fur. Her fingers, as usual, were adorned by a multiplicity of
rings with emeralds, attracting the eyes by their deep and tender green.

The artiste was having one of her evil, black days to-day. Yesterday
morning some misunderstandings with the management had arisen; while in
the evening the public had received her not as triumphantly as she
would have desired, or, perhaps, this had simply appeared so to her;
while to-day in the newspaper the fool of a reviewer, who understood
just as much of art as a cow does of astronomy, had praised up her
rival, Titanova, in a big article. And so Ellena Victorovna had
persuaded herself that her head was aching; that there was a nervous
tic in her temples; and that her heart, time and again, seemed suddenly
to fall through somewheres.

"How do you do, my dear!" she said, a trifle nasally, in a weak, wan
voice, with pauses, as heroines on the stage speak when dying from love
and from consumption. "Sit down here ... I am glad to see you ... Only
don't be angry--I am almost dying from migraine, and from my miserable
heart. Pardon my speaking with difficulty. I think I sang too much and
tired my voice ..."

Rovinskaya, of course, had recalled both the mad escapade of that
evening; and the striking, unforgettable face of Tamara; but now, in a
bad mood, in the w