tried to play a Beethoven sonata without you,"--went on Panshin,
amiably encircling his waist with his arm, and smiling brightly:--"but we
couldn't make it go at all. Just imagine, I couldn't play two notes in
succession correctly."

"You vould haf done better to sing your romantz,"--retorted Lemm, pushing
aside Panshin's arm, and left the room.

Liza ran after him. She overtook him on the steps.

"Christofor Feodoritch, listen,"--she said to him in German, as she
accompanied him to the gate, across the close-cropped green grass of the
yard:--"I am to blame toward you--forgive me."

Lemm made no reply.

"I showed your cantata to Vladimir Nikolaitch; I was convinced that he
would appreciate it,--and it really did please him greatly."

Lemm halted.

"Zat is nozing,"--he said in Russian, and then added in his native
tongue:--"but he cannot understand anything; how is it that you do not
perceive that?--he is a dilettante--and that's all there is to it!"

"You are unjust to him,"--returned Liza:--"he understands everything, and
can do nearly everything himself."

"Yes, everything is second-class, light-weight, hasty work. That pleases,
and he pleases, and he is content with that--well, and bravo! But I am
not angry; that cantata and I--we are old fools; I am somewhat ashamed,
but that does not matter."

"Forgive me, Christofor Feodoritch,"--said Liza again.

"It does not mattair, it does not mattair," he repeated again in
Russian:--"you are a goot girl ... but see yonder, some vun is coming to
your house. Good-bye. You are a fery goot girl."

And Lemm, with hasty strides, betook himself toward the gate, through
which was entering a gentleman with whom he was not acquainted, clad in a
grey coat and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Courteously saluting him (he
bowed to all newcomers in the town of O * * *; he turned away from his
acquaintances on the street--that was the rule which he had laid down for
himself), Lemm passed him, and disappeared behind the hedge. The stranger
looked after him in amazement, and, exchanging a glance with Liza,
advanced straight toward her.

VII

"You do not recognise me,"--he said, removing his hat,--"but I recognise
you, although eight years have passed since I saw you last. You were a
child then. I am Lavretzky. Is your mother at home? Can I see her?"

"Mamma will be very glad,"--replied Liza:--"she has heard of your
arrival."

"Your nam