notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had
hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with
the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the
furniture. . . . Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage,
interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous,
and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill
and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping;
and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent
exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her
forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizh
among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch
this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, and
to listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, was
so pleasant, so novel. . . .

"Well, Kitten, you have played as never before," said Ivan Petrovitch,
with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood
up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better."

All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment,
declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she
listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was
expressive of triumph.

"Splendid, superb!"

"Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm.
"Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At the
Conservatoire?"