leave, but they told him that on such a day the best thing was to stay
where one was, and he agreed; he stayed. In the back room where he was
sitting with the ladies of the household, coolness reigned supreme;
the windows looked out upon a little garden overgrown with acacias.
Multitudes of bees, wasps, and humming beetles kept up a steady,
eager buzz in their thick branches, which were studded with golden
blossoms; through the half-drawn curtains and the lowered blinds this
never-ceasing hum made its way into the room, telling of the sultry
heat in the air outside, and making the cool of the closed and snug
abode seem the sweeter.

Sanin talked a great deal, as on the day before, but not of Russia,
nor of Russian life. Being anxious to please his young friend, who
had been sent off to Herr Klueber's immediately after lunch, to
acquire a knowledge of book-keeping, he turned the conversation on
the comparative advantages and disadvantages of art and commerce. He
was not surprised at Frau Lenore's standing up for commerce--he had
expected that; but Gemma too shared her opinion.

'If one's an artist, and especially a singer,' she declared with a
vigorous downward sweep of her hand, 'one's got to be first-rate!
Second-rate's worse than nothing; and who can tell if one will
arrive at being first-rate?' Pantaleone, who took part too in the
conversation--(as an old servant and an old man he had the privilege
of sitting down in the presence of the ladies of the house; Italians
are not, as a rule, strict in matters of etiquette)--Pantaleone, as a
matter of course, stood like a rock for art. To tell the truth, his
arguments were somewhat feeble; he kept expatiating for the most part
on the necessity, before all things, of possessing '_un certo estro
d'inspirazione_'--a certain force of inspiration! Frau Lenore remarked