waving his hand.

"He was not alone," said Nikita.

"Who else was with him?"

"I don't know, some police officer or other."

"But why a police officer?"

"I don't know why, but he says because your rent is not paid."

"Well, what will come of it?"

"I don't know what will come of it: he said, 'If he won't pay, why, let
him leave the rooms.' They are both coming again to-morrow."

"Let them come," said Tchartkoff, with indifference; and a gloomy mood
took full possession of him.

Young Tchartkoff was an artist of talent, which promised great things:
his work gave evidence of observation, thought, and a strong inclination
to approach nearer to nature.

"Look here, my friend," his professor said to him more than once, "you
have talent; it will be a shame if you waste it: but you are impatient;
you have but to be attracted by anything, to fall in love with it, you
become engrossed with it, and all else goes for nothing, and you won't
even look at it. See to it that you do not become a fashionable artist.
At present your colouring begins to assert itself too loudly; and your
drawing is at times quite weak; you are already striving after the
fashionable style, because it strikes the eye at once. Have a care!
society already begins to have its attraction for you: I have seen you
with a shiny hat, a foppish neckerchief.... It is seductive to paint
fashionable little pictures and portraits for money; but talent is
ruined, not developed, by that means. Be patient; think out every piece
of work, discard your foppishness; let others amass money, your own will
not fail you."

The professor was partly right. Our artist sometimes wanted to enjoy
himself, to play the fop, in short, to give vent to his youthful
impulses in some way or other; but he could control himself withal. At
times he would forget everything, when he had once taken his brush in
his hand, and could not tear himself from it except as from a delightful
dream. His taste perceptibly developed. He did not as yet understand all
the depths of Raphael, but he was attracted by Guido's broad and rapid
handling, he paused before Titian's portraits, he delighted in the
Flemish masters. The dark veil enshrouding the ancient pictures had not
yet wholly passed away from before them; but he already saw something
in them, though in private he did not agree with the professor that the
secrets of the old masters are irremediably lost to us. It seemed to him
that the nine