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!'" Tatyana Borissovna smiled slyly. 'I agon-ise, I agon-ise!' yelled her nephew in the next room. 'Be quiet, Andryusha!' 'My soul's consumed apart from thee!' the indefatigable singer continued. Tatyana Borissovna shook her head. 'Ah, these artists! these artists!'.... A year has gone by since then. Byelovzorov is still living at his aunt's, and still talking of going back to Petersburg. He has grown as broad as he is long in the country. His aunt--who could have imagined such a thing?--idolises him, and the young girls of the neighbourhood are falling in love with him.... Many of her old friends have given up going to Tatyana Borissovna's. XVI DEATH