, brother, what dost thou think of her?" he asked, all beaming with
satisfaction.

"She has a fine voice," replied Aratoff, "but she does not know how to
sing yet, she has had no real school." (Why he said this and what he
meant by "school" the Lord only knows!)

Kupfer was surprised.--"She has no school," he repeated slowly....
"Well, now.... She can still study. But on the other hand, what soul!
But just wait until thou hast heard her recite Tatyana's letter."

He ran away from Aratoff, and the latter thought: "Soul! With that
impassive face!"--He thought that she bore herself and moved like a
hypnotised person, like a somnambulist.... And, at the same time, she
was indubitably.... Yes! she was indubitably staring at him.

Meanwhile the "morning" went on. The fat man in spectacles presented
himself again; despite his serious appearance he imagined that he was a
comic artist and read a scene from Gogol, this time without evoking a
single token of approbation. The flute-player flitted past once more;
again the pianist thundered; a young fellow of twenty, pomaded and
curled, but with traces of tears on his cheeks, sawed out some
variations on his fiddle. It might have appeared strange that in the
intervals between the recitations and the music the abrupt notes of a
French horn were wafted, now and then, from the artists' room; but this
instrument was not used, nevertheless. It afterward came out that the
amateur who had offered to perform on it had been seized with a panic at
the moment when he should have made his appearance before the audience.
So at last, Clara Militch appeared again.

She held in her hand a small volume of Pushkin; but during her reading
she never once glanced at it.... She was obviously frightened; the
little book shook slightly in her fingers. Aratoff also observed the
expression of dejection which _now_ overspread her stern features. The
first line: "I write to you ... what would you more?" she uttered with
extreme simplicity, almost ingenuously,--stretching both arms out in
front of her with an ingenuous, sincere, helpless gesture. Then she
began to hurry a little; but beginning with the line: "Another! Nay! to
none on earth could I have given e'er my heart!" she regained her
self-possession, and grew animated; and when she reached the words:
"All, all life hath been a pledge of faithful meeting thus with
thee,"--her hitherto rather dull voice rang out enthusiastically and
boldly, and her ey