to Ivan Matveitch. But the old man only smiled--no; he never smiled, but
somehow sharpened and moved forward his lips--and told him: 'Vous ne
savez pas ce qu'il y a de ressources dans cette jeunesse.' 'In former
years, however, M. le Commandeur,'... the doctor ventured to observe.
Ivan Matveitch smiled as before. 'Vous revez, mon cher,' he interposed:
'le commandeur n'a plus de dents, et il crache a chaque mot. J'aime les
voix jeunes.'

And I still went on reading, though my cough was very troublesome in the
mornings and at night.... Sometimes Ivan Matveitch made me play the
piano. But music always had a soporific influence on his nerves. His
eyes closed at once, his head nodded in time, and only rarely I heard,
'C'est du Steibelt, n'est-ce pas? Jouez-moi du Steibelt!' Ivan Matveitch
looked upon Steibelt as a great genius, who had succeeded in overcoming
in himself 'la grossiere lourdeur des Allemands,' and only found fault
with him for one thing: 'trop de fougue! trop d'imagination!'... When
Ivan Matveitch noticed that I was tired from playing he would offer me
'du cachou de Bologne.' So day after day slipped by....

And then one night--a night never to be forgotten!--a terrible calamity
fell upon me. My mother died almost suddenly. I was only just fifteen.
Oh, what a sorrow that was, with what cruel violence it swooped down
upon me! How terrified I was at that first meeting with death! My poor
mother! Strange were our relations; we passionately loved each other...
passionately and hopelessly; we both as it were treasured up and hid
from each other our common secret, kept obstinately silent about it,
though we knew all that was passing at the bottom of our hearts! Even of
the past, of her own early past, my mother never spoke to me, and she
never complained in words, though her whole being was nothing but one
dumb complaint. We avoided all conversation of any seriousness. Alas! I