sight of a German:
something simply impels me to stir him up."

"Why do you say that, Vladimir Nikolaitch! This German is a poor,
solitary, broken man--and you feel no pity for him? You want to stir him
up?"

Panshin was disconcerted.

"You are right, Lizaveta Mikhailovna,"--he said. "My eternal
thoughtlessness is responsible for the whole thing. No, do not say a
word; I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me many an ill
turn. Thanks to it, I have won the reputation of an egoist."

Panshin paused for a moment. No matter how he began a conversation, he
habitually wound up by speaking of himself, and he did it in a charming,
soft, confidential, almost involuntary way.

"And here in your house,"--he went on:--"your mother likes me, of
course,--she is so kind; you ... however, I do not know your opinion of
me; but your aunt, on the contrary, cannot bear me. I must have offended
her, also, by some thoughtless, stupid remark. For she does not like me,
does she?"

"No," said Liza, with some hesitation:--"you do not please her."

Panshin swept his fingers swiftly over the keys; a barely perceptible
smile flitted across his lips.

"Well, and you?"--he said:--"Do I seem an egoist to you also?"

"I know you very slightly,"--returned Liza:--"but I do not consider you
an egoist; on the contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you...."

"I know, I know, what you mean to say,"--Panshin interrupted her, and
again ran his fingers over the keys:--"for the music, for the books which
I bring you, for the bad drawings with which I decorate your album, and
so forth and so on. I can do all that--and still be an egoist. I venture
to think, that you are not bored in my company, and that you do not
regard me as a bad man, but still you assume, that I--how in the world
shall I express it?--would not spare my own father or friend for the sake
of a jest."

"You are heedless and forgetful, like all worldly people,"--said
Liza:--"that is all."

Panshin frowned slightly.

"Listen," he said:--"let us not talk any more about me; let us play our
sonata. One thing only I will ask of you,"--he said, as with his hand he
smoothed out the leaves of the bound volume which stood on the
music-rack:--"think what you will of me, call me an egoist even,--so be
it! but do not call me a worldly man: that appellation is intolerable to
me.... _Anch'io son pittore._ I also am an artist,--and I will
immediately prove it to you in action. Let us b