His grandfather, a peculiar fellow, was a Parisian of the Second Empire, a man of society who, it may well be, not long ago had been out walking with the Mornys and the Paivas. An amiable Epicurean he was, a man of fine discernment in the manner of his time, who had set up a retreat for himself at Petrograd that was well adapted to his ineffaceable memories. Everything in this home of dreams appealed to the sensibilities of the child--the brocaded silks, the graceful and heavily gilded trinkets. But his greatest delight was the large gilded parlor, with panels of yellow tapestry, with furniture of rock and shell=work in the style of 1860, with its white marble, its yellow flower stand, filled at all times with rare plants, and (this constituted his supreme happiness) its four gilded cages in which canary birds were chirping. In a corner, on a stand, a large model of the Temple of Salomon displayed its imaginative architecture. A large painting had for its subject the lament of the Jews before the demolished walls of Zion, for the former Parisian “lion” did not renounce his race; he had not forgotten Jeremiah over Theresa. The irritable old man at times scared the impulsive and vivacious urchin; kindhearted old grouch that he was, he often angrily charged the wretched disorder up to the young lad. Levoushka was therefore not sorry to see his grandfather leave for his customary Saturday promenade, for this was indeed the right moment for him to make the large clock, with its mechanical doll, ring, and to wind up the music boxes of every description that were to be found in the yellow drawing room. His own home furnished Leon no such emotions. Besides, the indifference to matters of art was practically general in the Russian intellectual classes of that time. The grandfather was therefore the idol of the child, his sole arbiter of good taste. No sooner had he returned home, than Levoushka would turn his room upside down and would try to arrange his modest furniture according to the exquisite æsthetic principles of the yellow drawing room; and he would try to hide from view the things that were devoid of beauty. Yet throughout all this there was never any idea of painting. Later, his grandfather never got to know that Bakst was sketching. Meanwhile Leon was about to become ten years old. His entry into school put an end to his weekly pilgrimages to the Nevsky Prospect. Sesame had closed. THE UNGRATEFUL AGE No sooner had Leon become encased in the uniform which distinguishes the city student from the provincial youngster in gray--viz., a black blouse with silver buttons--, than he came to know the monotonous and depressing life of the Russian schoolboy: rising by lamp=light during the long winter months; returning with his school=bag on his back; suffering the petty annoyances of an oppressive discipline and the black boredom of official education.