said, 'frightens the creative impulse, and it takes flight like the nightingale from a thicket, at the sudden creaking of grating wheels on the road.'
Often the dawn found him over some lyric. Every hour not spent at the Lubetzkys was devoted to composition. He wrote poetry and read it to Nadinka; she would copy it out on superfine paper and learn it by heart, and he experienced ' the poet's highest bliss—hearing his own creations from beloved lips.'
' You are my muse,' he said to her; ' be the Vesta of the sacred fire which burns within my breast; if you abandon it, it will die out.'
Then he sent verses under noms-de-plume to the magazines. They printed them because they were not bad, in parts not without force, and all animated by ardent feeling, and the style was good.
Nadinka was proud of his love and called him ' my poet'
' Yes, yours, yours. for ever,' he added. Fame seemed
to smile before hiro, and Nadinka, he thought, would twine him the laurels to crown his brow, and then . . . . ' Life, life, how fair a thing thou art! ' he exclaimed. ' And my uncle? He would destroy, he would corrupt my loving heart, he would pervert it.'
And he avoided his uncle, did not go to see him for whole weeks, then months. And if when they did meet, the conversation turned on matters of feeling, he kept a contemptuous silence or listened like a man whose convictions cannot be shaken by any arguments. He considered his judgments infallible, his feelings and opinions unsuitable, and decided in future to be guided only by them, declaring that he was no longer a boy and why should he be bound by the opinions of others, and so on.
But his uncle was always the same; he never asked his nephew about anything and did not or would not notice his whims. He was as cordial with him as before, and lightly reproached him for coming so rarely to see him.
' My wife is angry with you,' he said : 'she was accustomed to regard you as a relation: we dine every day at home; you must come in.'
But Alexandr rarely went in, for he had no time; in the morning at the office, after dinner till night at the Lubet-zkys ; night came, and at night he entered the ' world of his own ' he had created, and continued to create there. And besides it did him no harm to sleep a little sometimes.
In prose composition he was less happy. He wrote a play, two novels, some sketches and travels. His activity was amazing, the paper seemed to burn under his pen. His play and one of his novels he showed at first to his uncle and asked him to say whether they would do. His uncle read a few pages at random and handed it back, writing above—'It will do to light the fire !'
Alexandr was furious and sent them to the magazines, but they returned him both of them. In two places on the margin of the play was noted in pencil ' not bad,' and that was all. On the novel the following criticisms were often to be met with: ' weak, untrue, unreal, tedious, not worked out' and so on, and at the end it was said 'there is noticeable throughout an ignorance of the heart, an excess of fervour, unreality, everything stilted, no real human being in it—the hero is a monstrosity—such people don't exist—
unsuitable for publication! However, the author is not without ability; he must work!'
'Such people don't exist! ' thought Alexandr, mortified and surprised—' not exist ? but I am myself the hero. Can I describe the common heroes whom one meets at every turn, who think and feel like the herd and do what every one else does—the pitiful characters in small everyday tragedies and comedies, not distinguished by any special stamp— is art to stoop to that ?'....
He invoked the shade of Byron, he called on Goethe and Schiller to confirm the truth of the literary doctrines he professed. He considered that a hero fit for a drama or a novel could be nothing else than some corsair, or great ,poet or artist, and he made them act and feel accordingly. ^ In one novel he laid the scene of the action in America; the mise en scene was extravagant; American scenery, mountains, and in the midst of all this an exile who had borne away with him his beloved. The whole world had forgotten them; they loved each other and nature, and when tidings were brought them of pardon and the possibility of returning to their native land, they refused. Twenty years after a European arrived there, came with an escort of Indians to hunt and found on a mountain a hut and in it skeletons. The European was the hero's rival. How beautiful this story seemed to him! with what delight he read it to Nadinka in the winter evenings! How eagerly she listened to him !—and to think of not taking such a novel!
Of this failure he did not speak to Nadinka; he swallowed the outrage in silence—and that was the end of it With a sigh he laid aside literary prose for some future time; when his heart should be beating more evenly, his thoughts would be more in order, then he promised himself to set to work properly.
Day after day passed by, days of uninterrupted blissful-ness for Alexandr. He was happy when he kissed the end of Nadinka's little finger, sat opposite her in a picturesque attitude for two hours at a stretch, not taking his eyes off her, sighing and melting with tenderness, or declaiming verses appropriate to the occasion.
Truth compels one to state that she sometimes met his sighs and verses with a yawn. And no wonder; her heart
was employed, but her mind remained quite unoccupied. Alexandr never exerted himself to give it food. /The year fixed for their .probation by Nadinka had passed: SFe~was~~ ^TTving'again with her mother at the same country villa, Alexandr began to speak to her of her promise, and begged permission to speak to her mother. Nadinka would have put it off till their return to town, but Alexandr insisted.
At last, at parting one evening, she gave Alexandr leave to speak to her mother the following day.
Alexandr did not sleep the whole night, and did not go to his duties. He kept revolving the next day in his head; he thought of everything he would say to Maria Mihalovna; he was composing his speech and preparing himself, but as soon as he recalled that it was Nadinka's hand that was in question, he was lost in dreams and again forgot everything. So he arrived at the house in the evening without having prepared anything; but it was not needed ; Nadinka met him as usual in the garden, but with a slight shade of pensiveness in her eyes, without a smile, and with a somewhat preoccupied air.
.<?You can't speak to mamma now,' she said; 'that horrid y^ /Count is indoors.'
^ --^CountJ whajr> in t? '
' Why, don't you know what Count! C ount Novinsky of course—our neig h bour,; thatJs hjs vi lla;' 110W fflimy tunes you have admired Tiis garden !'
' Count Novinsky! calling on you !' said Alexander, surprised ; ' how did it happen ? '
'I don't know very well myself' answered Nadinka. I was sitting here and reading your book and mamma wasn't at home; she had gone to Maria Ivanovna. Then it begun to rain a little, I went indoors, all at once a carriage drove up, dove-coloured with white cushions, the same that is always driving by us—you admired it once. I look out and see mamma stepping out with a man. They came in; and mamma said, ' Here, Count, this is my daughter; let me introduce you.' He bowed, and so did I. I felt shy, I grew red and ran away to my room. But mamma—so horrible of her—I heard saying, * Excuse her, Count, she is such a wild thing'. ... So I guessed that it must be our neighbour Count Novinsky. I suppose he brought mamma in his carriage from Maria Ivanovna's, because of the rain.'
u^
' Is he—an old man ! ' asked Alexandr.
' An old man! what an idea! he's young, good-looking !'
' You had time then to see he was good-looking!' said Alexandr with annoyance.
' That's good! does it take long to look at any one? I just spoke to him. Ah ! he is very polite; he asked what I do; talked of music; asked me to sing something, but I didn't; I really can't sing a bit; next winter I shall certainly ask mamma to get me a good teacher of singing. The Count says it's all the fashion now, singing.' All this was uttered with great vivacity.
' I thought, Nadyezhda Alexandrovna,' observed Alexandr, u that next winter you would have other occupations besides singing.'
' What occupation ? '
' What!' said Alexandr reproachfully.
' Ah, yes—did you come by boat ? '
He looked at her without speaking. She turned away and went into the house.
Adouev went into the drawing-room not altogether easy in his mind. What kind of man might the Count be ? How should he behave to him ? what would his manner be like— proud, or nonchalant ? He went in. The Count rose
