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rievna laughed, at first, as she watched him, and then went off to bed; as she said, Beethoven was too agitating for her nerves. At midnight, Lavretzky escorted Lemm to his lodgings, and sat with him until three o'clock in the morning. Lemm talked a great deal; his bent shoulders straightened up, his eyes opened widely and sparkled; his very hair stood upright above his brow. It was such a very long time since any one had taken an interest in him, but Lavretzky evidently did take an interest, and interrogated him solicitously and attentively. This touched the old man; he ended by showing his visitor his music, he even played and sang to him, with his ghost of a voice, several selections from his compositions,--among others, the whole of Schiller's ballad "Fridolin," which he had set to music. Lavretzky lauded it, made him repeat portions of it, and invited him to visit him for a few days. Lemm, who was escorting him to the street, immediately accepted, and shook his hand warmly; but when he was left alone, in the cool, damp air of the day which was just beginning to dawn, he glanced around him, screwed up his eyes, writhed, and went softly to his tiny chamber, like a guilty creature: "Ich bin wohl nicht klug" (I'm not in my right mind),--he muttered, as he lay down on his hard, short bed. He tried to assert that he was ill when, a few days later, Lavretzky came for him in a calash; but Feodor Ivanitch went to him, in his room, and persuaded him. The circumstance which operated most powerfully of all on Lemm was, that Lavretzky had ordered a piano to be sent to his country-house from the town: a piano for his--Lemm's--use. Together they went to the Kalitins', and spent the evening, but not so agreeably as on the former occasion. Panshin was there, had a great deal to narrate about his journey, and very amusingly mimicked and illustrated in action the country squires he had seen; Lavretzky laughed, but Lemm did not emerge from his corner, maintained silence, quietly quivered all over like a spider, looked glum and dull, and grew animated only when Lavretzky began to take his leave. Even when he was seated in the calash, the old man continued to be shy and to fidget; but the quiet, warm air, the light breeze, the delicate shadows, the perfume of the grass, of the birch buds, the peaceful gleam of the starry, moonless heaven, the energetic hoof-beats and snorting of the horses, all the charms of the road, of spring, of night,-
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