of a soft and sweet tone, though not perfectly in tune. Bersenyev
sat down to it, and began to strike some chords. Like all Russians of
good birth, he had studied music in his childhood, and like almost all
Russian gentlemen, he played very badly; but he loved music
passionately. Strictly speaking, he did not love the art, the forms in
which music is expressed (symphonies and sonatas, even operas wearied
him), but he loved the poetry of music: he loved those vague and
sweet, shapeless, and all-embracing emotions which are stirred in the
soul by the combinations and successions of sounds. For more than an
hour, he did not move from the piano, repeating many times the same
chords, awkwardly picking out new ones, pausing and melting over the
minor sevenths. His heart ached, and his eyes more than once filled
with tears. He was not ashamed of them; he let them flow in the
darkness. 'Pavel was right,' he thought, 'I feel it; this evening
will not come again.' At last he got up, lighted a candle, put on his
dressing-gown, took down from the bookshelf the second volume of
Raumer's _History of the Hohenstaufen_, and sighing twice, he set to
work diligently to read it.




VI


Meanwhile, Elena had gone to her room, and sat down at the open
window, her head resting on her hands. To spend about a quarter of an
hour every evening at her bedroom window had become a habit with her.
At this time she held converse with herself, and passed in review the
preceding day. She had not long reached her twentieth year. She was