l and flashy colouring,
catching the multitude, and making a fortune. These impressions made
their way into his mind, not in moments when he was buried, body and
soul, in his work, and forgot food and drink and all outward things; but
when, as was often the case, necessity stared him in the face, and he
found himself without the means of buying brushes and colours, or even
bread, whilst the greedy and implacable landlord came ten times a-day to
dun him for his rent. Then his hunger-sharpened imagination would revert
to the different lot of the rich and fashionable painter; then darted
through his brain the thought that so often flits through the Russian
head, the idea of sending his art and all to the devil, and going to the
devil himself.

"Yes, wait! wait!" he exclaimed passionately; "but patience and waiting
must have an end. Wait, indeed! and where am I to seek to-morrow's
dinner? Borrowing is out of the question; and if I sell my pictures and
drawings, they will give me, perhaps, a _dougrivennoi_ for the whole
lot. They are useful to me; not one of them but was undertaken with an
object,--from each I have learned something. But what would be their
value to any body else? They are studies,--exercises; and studies and
exercises they will remain to the end of the chapter. And, besides, who
would buy them? I am unknown as an artist, and who wants studies from
the antique and sketches from the living model, or my unfinished Love
and Psyche, or the perspective sketch of my room, or my portrait of
Nikita, though it is really better than the portraits painted by any of
your fashionable fellows? And, after all, what do I gain by this? Why
should I work myself to death, and keep plodding like a schoolboy over
his A, B, C, when I might be as famous as any of them, and have as much
money in my pockets?" As he pronounced these words, the artist
involuntarily shuddered and turned pale. He saw, looking fixedly at him,
peeping out from the shadow of a tall canvass that stood against the
wall, a face seemingly torn by some convulsive agony. Two dreadful eyes
glared upon the young man, with a strange inexplicable expression; the
lips were curled with mingled scorn and suffering; the features were
haggard and distorted. Startled, almost terrified, Tchartkoff was on the
point of calling Nikita, who by this time sent forth from his ante-room
a Titanic snore, when he checked himself and burst into a laugh. The
object of alarm was the po