-sex have done
who try to teach themselves without a skilled instructor, without any
real turn for the art, or without the smallest understanding either of
what the art can give or of what ought to be done to obtain that gift.
For me music (or rather, piano-playing) was simply a means of winning
the ladies' good graces through their sensibility. With the help of
Katenka I first learnt the notes (incidentally breaking several of them
with my clumsy fingers), and then--that is to say, after two months of
hard work, supplemented by ceaseless twiddling of my rebellious fingers
on my knees after luncheon, and on the pillow when in bed--went on to
"pieces," which I played (so Katenka assured me) with "soul" ("avec
ame"), but altogether regardless of time.

My range of pieces was the usual one--waltzes, galops, "romances,"
"arrangements," etcetera; all of them of the class of delightful
compositions of which any one with a little healthy taste could point
out a selection among the better class works contained in any volume
of music and say, "These are what you ought NOT to play, seeing that
anything worse, less tasteful, and more silly has never yet been
included in any collection of music,"--but which (probably for that very
reason) are to be found on the piano of every Russian lady. True, we
also possessed an unfortunate volume which contained Beethoven's "Sonate
Pathetique" and the C minor Sonata (a volume lamed for life by the
ladies--more especially by Lubotshka, who used to discourse music from
it in memory of Mamma), as well as certain other good pieces which her
teacher in Moscow had given her; but among that collection there were
likewise compositions of the teacher's own, in the shape of clumsy
marches and galops--and these too Lubotshka used to play! Katenka and
I cared nothing for serious works, but preferred, above all things, "Le
Fou" and "The Nightingale"--the latter of which Katenka would play until
her fingers almost became invisible, and which I too was beginning to
execute with much vigour and some continuity. I had adopted the gestures
of the young man of whom I have spoken, and frequently regretted that
there were no strangers present to see me play. Soon, however, I began
to realise that Liszt and Kalkbrenner were beyond me, and that I should
never overtake Katenka. Accordingly, imagining that classical music was
easier (as well as, partly, for the sake of originality), I suddenly
came to the conclusion t