'There, all right, shut up!' retorted the Wild Master. 'Yakov, begin!'

Yakov took himself by his throat:

'Well, really, brothers,... something.... Hm, I don't know, on my word,
what....'

'Come, that's enough; don't be timid. For shame!... why go back?... Sing
the best you can, by God's gift.'

And the Wild Master looked down expectant. Yakov was silent for a
minute; he glanced round, and covered his face with his hand. All had
their eyes simply fastened upon him, especially the booth-keeper, on
whose face a faint, involuntary uneasiness could be seen through his
habitual expression of self-confidence and the triumph of his success.
He leant back against the wall, and again put both hands under him, but
did not swing his legs as before. When at last Yakov uncovered his face
it was pale as a dead man's; his eyes gleamed faintly under their
drooping lashes. He gave a deep sigh, and began to sing.... The first
sound of his voice was faint and unequal, and seemed not to come from
his chest, but to be wafted from somewhere afar off, as though it had
floated by chance into the room. A strange effect was produced on all of
us by this trembling, resonant note; we glanced at one another, and
Nikolai Ivanitch's wife seemed to draw herself up. This first note was
followed by another, bolder and prolonged, but still obviously
quivering, like a harpstring when suddenly struck by a stray finger it
throbs in a last, swiftly-dying tremble; the second was followed by a
third, and, gradually gaining fire and breadth, the strains swelled into
a pathetic melody. 'Not one little path ran into the field,' he sang,