Besides that, he was very impatient, unrestrained, irascible; grew fatigued soon, and a secret—usually concealed but constantly growing—hatred for the girl who had so suddenly and incongruously warped all his life, more and more frequently and unjustly broke forth during the time of these lessons. A far greater success as a pedagogue enjoyed Nijeradze. His guitar and mandolin always hung in the dining room, secured to the nails with ribbons. The guitar, with its soft, warm sounds, drew Liubka more than the irritating, metallic bleating of the mandolin. When Nijeradze would come to them as a guest (three or four times a week, in the evening), she herself would take the guitar down from the wall, painstakingly wipe it off with a handkerchief, and hand it over to him. He, having fussed for some time with the tuning, would clear his throat, put one leg over the other, negligently throw himself against the back of the chair, and begin in a throaty little tenor, a trifle hoarse, but pleasant and true: “The trea-cha-rous sa-ound av akissing Resahounds through the quiet night air; Tuh all fla-ming hearts it is pleasing, And given tuh each lovin’ pair. For a single mohoment of mee-ting ...” And at this he would pretend to swoon away from his own singing, shut his eyes, toss his head in the passionate passages or during the pauses, tearing his right hand away from the strings; would suddenly turn to stone, and for a second would pierce Liubka’s eyes with his languorous, humid, sheepish eyes. He knew an endless multitude of ballads, catches, and old-fashioned, jocose little pieces. Most of all pleased Liubka the universally familiar Armenian couplets about Karapet: “Karapet has a buffet, On the buffet’s a confet, On the confet’s a portret— That’s the self-same Karapet.” [22] Anglice, “confet” is a bon-bon; “portret,” a portrait.—Trans. Of these couplets (in the Caucasus they are called kinto-uri—the song of the peddlers) the prince knew an infinite many, but the absurd refrain was always one and the same: “Bravo, bravo, Katenka, Katerin Petrovna, Don’t you kiss me on the cheek—a, Kiss the backs of my head.”