forward to escort her more hurriedly than before, and when he found himself so unjustifiably deserted, tossed his hair as certainly Liszt himself had never tossed his! During the whole time of the singing, Aratov had been watching Clara’s face. It seemed to him that her eyes, through the drooping eyelashes, were again turned upon him; but he was especially struck by the immobility of the face, the forehead, the eyebrows; and only at her outburst of passion he caught through the hardly-parted lips the warm gleam of a close row of white teeth. Kupfer came up to him. ‘Well, my dear boy, what do you think of her?’ he asked, beaming all over with satisfaction. ‘It’s a fine voice,’ replied Aratov; ‘but she doesn’t know how to sing yet; she’s no real musical knowledge.’ (Why he said this, and what conception he had himself of ‘musical knowledge,’ the Lord only knows!) Kupfer was surprised. ‘No musical knowledge,’ he repeated slowly.... ‘Well, as to that ... she can acquire that. But what soul! Wait a bit, though; you shall hear her in Tatiana’s letter.’ He hurried away from Aratov, while the latter said to himself, ‘Soul! with that immovable face!’ He thought that she moved and held herself like one hypnotised, like a somnambulist. And at the same time she was unmistakably ... yes! unmistakably looking at him. Meanwhile the matinée went on. The fat man in spectacles appeared again; in spite of his serious exterior, he fancied himself a comic actor, and recited a scene from Gogol, this time without eliciting a single token of approbation. There was another glimpse of the flute-player; another thunder-clap from the pianist; a boy of twelve, frizzed and pomaded, but with tear-stains on his cheeks, thrummed some variations on a fiddle. What seemed strange was that in the intervals of the reading and music, from the performers’ room, sounds were heard from time to time of a French horn; and yet this instrument never was brought into requisition. In the sequel it appeared that the amateur, who had been invited to perform on it, had lost courage at the moment of facing the public. At last Clara Militch made her appearance again.