Asbeïn: From the Life of a Virtuoso. Ossip Schubin
It was the beginning of May, and he had finished his cyclus of songs. With a beating heart he entered the Palazzo Morsini to ask Natalie whether he might dedicate it to her.
The young princess was not at home, but her mother would be very happy to see him, they told him.
It was very hot, the blinds were all lowered. The princess lay on a lounge and fanned herself with a peacock feather fan.
After she had complained of the heat, she began to speak to him of all kinds of family affairs. Her son had the best of opportunities to make a career for himself, said she; her eldest daughter, who was far less pretty than Natalie, added the princess, had married very well; her husband was indeed a wealthy diplomat. "Mois, je suis pauvre," concluded the old lady; "but I could live quite without care, if Natalie were only married. But she will hear nothing of that. She lets the best years of her life pass, and if you only knew what good matches she has refused. Pachotin has already offered himself twice to her, and if you please----"
Just then a gay voice interrupted the inconsolable elegy. "Mamma, how can any one boast so?" Natalie had entered, a large black hat on her head, in her arms a huge bunch of flowers.
"I did not boast--I complained," replied the old woman, sighing.
After Natalie had greeted Lensky with her usual friendliness, she laid the flowers on the table and arranged them in the vases which an Italian chambermaid had brought her.
"Ah, Natalie, why will you have none of them?" sighed the princess.
"Little mother, I can love but once," replied Natalie, bending her brown head over the flowers. "I have told you I will not marry until I have found some one quite extraordinary--a hero or a genius."
"Am I dreaming, or did she look at me with those words?" Lensky asked himself. "But why did she turn her eyes away so quickly when they met mine?"
Meanwhile the princess said: "Yes, if all girls wished to wait thus!"
"I am not like all girls," said Natalie, laughing. "Most girls have hearts like hand-organs, which every one can play; others have hearts like Æolian harps, on which no one can play, and still they always vibrate so sympathetically for the world; and still other girls--" she interrupted herself to break a superfluous leaf from a magnolia twig.
The princess, who seemed to lay little weight on Natalie's naïve comparisons, fanned herself indifferently with her peacock fan, but Lensky repeated, "Well, Natalie Alexandrovna, other girls----"
"Other girls have hearts like Amati violins; if a bungler touches them there is a horrible discord; but if a true artist comes who understands it, then----"
This exaggerated remark she had made in a voice trembling between mockery and tenderness, and incessantly occupied with the arrangement of her flowers.
Without ending the last sentence, she broke off, and bent her head to the right to observe a combination of white roses and heliotrope with a thoughtful look.
The princess yawned from heat and discontent. "Leave me in peace from your musical comparisons, Natascha," said she. "Besides, I can assure you that no one spoils a fine instrument quicker than one of your great virtuosos. When I think how Franz Liszt ruined our Pleyel in a single evening; it was no longer fit even for a conservatory."
"Violins are not ruined as quickly as pianos," said Natalie, laughing; then, still speaking to the flowers, she said: "Don't you think, little mother, that if such a piano had a soul, a mind, it would rather rejoice to really live for once under the hands of a great master, and even if it were to die of the joy, than merely to exist for a half-century in a noble, charming room, as a carefully preserved showpiece?"
Again it seemed to Lensky that she looked at him, and again she turned away her head when their looks met. "You are astonished at this great expenditure for flowers?" she remarked. "We expect guests this evening--my cousins from St. Petersburg, the Jeliagins. You know them, and I shall try to draw their critical looks away from the holes in the furniture covering to these beautiful color effects. So! Now I have finished; here are a few May-bells left for your button-hole. Ah! really, you never wear flowers!"
"Give them to me," said he, contracting his brows gloomily. She smiled at him without saying anything. Then something scratched at the door.
"Please open it, Boris Nikolaivitch," she asked.
He did so; her large dog, a gigantic Scotch greyhound, came in, and immediately springing up on his beautiful mistress, he laid both front paws on her shoulders. She took his heavy head between her slender hands, and murmuring tender, caressing words to him, she kissed him twice, three times, on the forehead.
Lensky took leave soon after without having mentioned his song cyclus. His mind was in an uproar. "Is she only coquetting with me?" he asked himself, "or--or--" A passionate joy throbbed in his veins, then suddenly an icy shudder ran over him. "And if she is only like all the others!"
At his departure Natalie had said to him: "You will come this evening, Boris Nikolaivitch, in spite of this boring Petersburg invasion? I beg you will, vous serez le coin bleu de mon ciel!"
* * * * * *
The evening came.
A Roman sirocco evening, with an approaching thunderstorm that hung heavily around the horizon and would not lift.
The heavily perfumed sultry air penetrated through the drawn curtains into the Assanows' drawing-room. The Jeliagins had brought a couple of Parisian friends with them, and naturally Pachotin was not missing. A deathly ennui reigned. They spoke of Parisian fashions, of the Empress Eugenie's new court; they complained of the new cook in the Hotel de l'Europe, and of the heat.
Then they spoke of national dances. The Jeliagins had recently travelled in Spain and were enthusiastic about the fandango. The Parisians had heard there was nothing more graceful than a well-danced Polish mazurka; could none of the Russian ladies dance one for them?--a very bold request, but they were all friends.
The Jeliagins announced that Natalie danced the mazurka like a true woman of Warsaw. They left her no peace.
"Oh, I will put on no more airs," said she, "if one of the ladies will take a seat at the piano, so----"
To go to the piano, even were it only to play dance-music, in Lensky's presence! The ladies swooned at the mere thought.
"Very well, then you must give up the mazurka," said Natalie, decidedly.
"Ask Boris Nikolaivitch," whispered one of the St. Petersburg women. "If he is the first violinist of his time, he is also an excellent pianist."
"No, no," said Natalie, firmly, and then her great brilliant eyes met Lensky's.
Although at that time he maintained his artistic dignity with quite childish exaggeration, he smiled very good-naturedly and said, "I see very well that you place no confidence in me; you think I cannot catch your mazurka music."
"No, no, no!" said Natalie. "You shall not degrade your art."
"And do you really think it would be degrading to improvise a musical background for your performance? I should so like to see you dance." And he stood up and went to the piano.
Such pretty little phrases were formerly not his style. He had, as Natalie had often laughingly told him, no talent for fioriture in conversation.
The Petersburg ladies looked at each other. "How polite he has become! You have changed him, Natascha," whispered they.
Meanwhile Pachotin gave Natalie his hand.
Lensky had seized the opportunity of admiring her grace with joy. He had never thought how painfully it would affect him to see her dance with another man. He did not take his eyes off her, and meanwhile improvised the most bewitching devil's music.
She wore a white dress, her neck and arms were bare, and around her waist was a Circassian girdle embroidered with gold and silver. One hand in her partner's, the other hanging loosely at her side, her head slightly on one side, she moved safely over