or the harmonious name
of Nikita, and who united in his person the dirt incidental to three out
of his four occupations. Tchartkoff entered his ante-room, which felt
very chilly, as artists' ante-rooms usually are, and, without taking off
his cloak, walked on into his studio a square apartment, tolerably
spacious, but low in the ceiling, and with windows dimmed by the frost.
This room was littered with all kinds of artistical rubbish: fragments
of plaster of Paris, casts of hands, frames, stretched canvasses,
sketches begun and thrown aside, and drapery cast carelessly over the
chairs. Completely knocked up, Tchartkoff let his cloak fall, placed his
new purchase against the wall, and threw himself on a narrow meagre
little sofa, whose leathern cover, torn upon one side from the row of
brass nails that had formerly confined it, afforded Nikita a convenient
receptacle for dish-cloths, old clothes, dirty linen, and any other
miscellaneous matters he thought fit to cram under. The sun had set, and
the night grew each moment darker. Our artist ordered Nikita to bring a
candle.

"There are no candles," was Nikita's reply.

"How!--no candles?"

"There were none yesterday," said Nikita.

Tchartkoff remembered that there _had_ been none the night before, and
that his credit with the tallow-chandler was not such as to render it
probable a supply had been sent in that morning. So he held his tongue,
allowed Nikita to take off his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and wrapped
himself up as warmly as he could in a dressing gown with tattered
elbows.

"I forgot to tell you," said Nikita, "the landlord has been here."

"For money, I suppose," said the artist, shrugging his shoulders.

"He had somebody with him. A Kvartalnue, I think.[28] He said something
about the rent not being paid."

"Well, what can they do?"

"Don't know," replied the imperturbable Nikita. "He said you must leave
the lodgings or pay. Will come again to-morrow."

"Let them come," said Tchartkoff gloomily. And he turned himself upon
the comfortless sofa with a feeling akin to desperation.

Tchartkoff was a young artist of considerable promise, and whose pencil
was at times remarked for its accuracy, and near approach to the
truthfulness of nature. But he had faults which procured him frequent
admonitions from the professor under whom he studied. "You have talent,"
he would say to him; "it will be a sin to ruin it by carelessness and by
pursuing erroneous i