egin."

"We will begin, if you please,"--said Liza.

The first adagio went quite successfully, although Panshin made more
than one mistake. He played his own compositions and those which he had
practised very prettily, but he read music badly. On the other hand, the
second part of the sonata--a rather brisk allegro--did not go at all: at
the twentieth measure, Panshin, who had got two measures behind, could
hold out no longer, and pushed back his chair with a laugh.

"No!"--he exclaimed:--"I cannot play to-day; it is well that Lemm does
not hear us: he would fall down in a swoon."

Liza rose, shut the piano, and turned to Panshin.

"What shall we do now?"--she asked.

"I recognise you in that question! You cannot possibly sit with folded
hands. Come, if you like, let us draw, before it has grown completely
dark. Perhaps the other muse,--the muse of drawing ... what's her name?
I've forgotten ... will be more gracious to me. Where is your album? Do
you remember?--my landscape there is not finished."

Liza went into the next room for her album, and Panshin, when he was
left alone, pulled a batiste handkerchief from his pocket, polished his
nails, and gazed somewhat askance at his hands. They were very handsome
and white; on the thumb of the left hand he wore a spiral gold ring. Liza
returned; Panshin seated himself near the window, and opened the album.

"Aha!"--he exclaimed:--"I see that you have begun to copy my
landscape--and that is fine. Very good! Only here--give me a pencil--the
shadows are not put on thickly enough.... Look."

And Panshin, with a bold sweep, prolonged several long strokes. He
constantly drew one and the same landscape: in the foreground were large,
dishevelled trees, in the distance, a meadow, and saw-toothed mountains
on the horizon. Liza looked over his shoulder at his work.

"In drawing, and in life in general,"--said Panshin, bending his head
now to the right, now to the left:--"lightness and boldness are the
principal thing."

At that moment, Lemm entered the room, and, with a curt inclination, was
on the point of departing; but Panshin flung aside the album and pencil,
and barred his way.

"Whither are you going, my dear Christofor Feodoritch? Are not you
going to stay and drink tea?"

"I must go home,"--said Lemm in a surly voice:--"my head aches."

"Come, what nonsense!--stay. You and I will have a dispute over
Shakespeare."

"My head aches,"--repeated the old man.

"We