portraits. He was a perfect ignoramus, had read nothing; why should an
artist read, indeed? Nature, freedom, poetry were his fitting elements;
he need do nothing but shake his curls, talk, and suck away at his
eternal cigarette! Russian audacity is a fine thing, but it doesn't suit
every one; and Polezhaevs at second-hand, without the genius, are
insufferable beings. Andrei Ivanovitch went on living at his aunt's; he
did not seem to find the bread of charity bitter, notwithstanding the
proverb. Visitors to the house found him a mortal nuisance. He would sit
at the piano (a piano, too, had been installed at Tatyana Borissovna's)
and begin strumming 'The Swift Sledge' with one finger; he would strike
some chords, tap on the keys, and for hours together he would howl
Varlamov's songs, 'The Solitary Pine,' or 'No, doctor, no, don't come to
me,' in the most distressing manner, and his eyes seemed to disappear
altogether, his cheeks were so puffed out and tense as drums.... Then he
would suddenly strike up: 'Be still, distracting passion's tempest!'...
Tatyana Borissovna positively shuddered.

'It's a strange thing,' she observed to me one day, 'the songs they
compose nowadays; there's something desperate about them; in my day they
were very different. We had mournful songs, too, but it was always a
pleasure to hear them.... For instance:--

"'Come, come to me in the meadow,
Where I am awaiting thee;
Come, come to me in the meadow,
Where I'm shedding tears for thee...
Alas! thou'rt coming to the meadow,
But too late, dear love, for me!'"