anied him as far as the street, agreed at once, and warmly
pressed his hand; but when he was left standing alone in the fresh, damp
air, in the just dawning sunrise, he looked round him, shuddered, shrank
into himself, and crept up to his little room, with a guilty air. "Ich
bin wohl nicht klug" (I must be out of my senses), he muttered, as he
lay down in his hard short bed. He tried to say that he was ill, a few
days later, when Lavretsky drove over to fetch him in an open carriage;
but Fedor Ivanitch went up into his room and managed to persuade him.
What produced the most powerful effect upon Lemm was the circumstance
that Lavretsky had ordered a piano from town to be sent into the country
expressly for him.

They set off together to the Kalitins' and spent the evening with them,
but not so pleasantly as on the last occasion. Panshin was there, he
talked a great deal about his expedition, and very amusingly mimicked
and described the country gentry he had seen; Lavretsky laughed,
but Lemm would not come out of his corner, and sat silent, slightly
tremulous all over like a spider, looking dull and sullen, and he only
revived when Lavretsky began to take leave. Even when he was sitting in
the carriage, the old man was still shy and constrained; but the warm
soft air, the light breeze, and the light shadows, the scent of the
grass and the birch-buds, the peaceful light of the starlit, moonless
night, the pleasant tramp and snort of the horses--all the witchery
of the roadside, the spring and the night, sank into the poor German's
soul, and he was himself the first to begin a conversation with
Lavretsky.

Chapter XXII

He began talking about music, about Lisa, then of music again. He seemed
to enunciate his words more slowly when he spoke of Lisa. Lavretsky
turned the conversation on his compositions, and half in jest, offered
to write him a libretto.

"H'm, a libretto!" replied Lemm; "no, that is not in my line; I have not
now the liveliness, the play of the imagination, which is needed for an
opera; I have lost too much of my power... But if I were still able to
do something,--I should be content with a song; of course, I should like
to have beautiful words..."

He ceased speaking, and sat a long while motionless, his eyes lifted to
the heavens.

"For instance," he said at last, "something in this way: 'Ye stars, ye
pure stars!'"

Lavretsky turned his face slightly towards him and began to look at him.