This artist is for ever enticing home some old beggar woman and compelling her to sit for a full six hours merely to enable him to transfer to canvas her pitiful, apathetic mien. He paints the perspectives of his room which contains all manner of artist’s rubbish: plaster-of-Paris limbs, turned coffee color with time and dust, broken easels, an over-turned pallette, a friend playing the guitar, walls splashed with paint and an open window through which one can catch a glimpse of the pale Neva, and its poor fishermen in their red shirts. Their tints are almost always grey and dim—the indelible stamp of the north. But despite all this, they labor over their work with genuine pleasure. They often nourish a genuine talent, and if only the fresh breeze of Italy would blow upon them, this talent would probably develop as freely, boundlessly and brightly as a plant which is at last taken out of the room into the clean air outside. Altogether they are very timid; a star and a big epaulette fill them with such confusion that they involuntarily lower the price of their works. They like to play the dandy sometimes, but this elegance of theirs always seems too crude and somewhat resembles a patch. You will sometimes see them wear an excellent dress-coat and a stained cloak, a costly velvet waistcoat and a jacket covered with paint. In just the same way, you will sometimes see a nymph painted upside-down on an unfinished landscape of his; not finding any other place, he has splashed her onto the soiled ground of his former creation, once painted by him with such delight. He never looks you straight in the eye; and if he does, he does it somehow dimly and vaguely; he does not fix you with the eagle eye of an observer, nor with the falcon gaze of a cavalry officer. This happens because he sees at one and the same time your features and the features of some sort of plaster-of-Paris Hercules standing in his room; or he can see his own picture which he is still thinking of expressing. This is why he often answers disjointedly and sometimes unsuitably, and the subjects mingling in his head still further increase his shyness.

And to this type belonged the young man we have described, the painter Piskarev, shy, retiring, but bearing in his soul the sparks of feeling, which were ready to leap into flame at a propitious moment. He hastened with a secret trepidation after the object of his desire, who had made such a strong impression on him, and he seemed amazed at his own rudeness. The unknown being on whom his eyes, his thoughts and feelings had become so fastened, suddenly turned her head and glanced at him. God, what divine features! The dazzling whiteness of a most beautiful brow was shaded with hair as lovely as agate. They waved, these wonderful curls, and some falling below the little hat, touched her cheeks which were tinged with a faint, fresh color from the cool evening air. About her lips clung a whole swarm of wondrous reveries. Everything that remains of childhood recollections, which fills one with dreams and a calm inspiration before the burning ikon-lamp—all this seemed to unite, to flow together and to lie reflected in her harmonious lips. She glanced at Piskarev and at this glance his heart fluttered; she glanced at him coldly, a look of indignation passed over her face at the sight of such insolent pursuit; but on this beautiful face anger itself was bewitching. Overcome with shame and timidity, he stopped with downcast eyes; but how could one lose this divinity without even discovering the shrine which she deigned to visit! Thoughts such as these passed through the young dreamer’s mind and he decided to continue the pursuit. But to conceal it, he remained at a great distance, gazed carelessly from side to side and examined shop signs without however losing sight of a single step the strange lady made. The passers-by thinned out, the street grew quieter, the beautiful woman looked back and he thought a faint smile flashed across her lips. He trembled and could not believe his eyes. No, it must have been the deceptive light of a lamp showing something like a smile on her face; no, his own dreams were mocking him! But his breath grew constricted in his breast, everything in him trembled subtly, all his feelings burned and everything before him hid in a kind of fog. The pavement rushed away beneath him, carriages with their galloping horses seemed motionless, the bridge stretched and broke at its arch, a house stood roof downwards, a hut tumbled to meet him and the watchman’s halberd along with the golden lettering of a sign and a pair of painted scissors, seemed to shine on his very eyelashes. And all this was wrought by one glance, by one turn of a pretty head. Without hearing, seeing, or understanding, he sped after the light footsteps of her lovely feet, trying to control the speed of his step which rushed onwards to keep pace with his heart. At times he was seized with doubt as to whether the expression of her face had been so well inclined and then he would stop for a moment; but the beating of his heart, an irresistible force and the excitement of all his feelings urged him onwards. He did not even notice how suddenly a four-storied house reared up before him, all four rows of windows shining with light gazed at him, and the rails on the porch-steps came against him with a shock of metal. He saw the stranger fly up the stairs, then glance back, place a finger on her lips and make a sign for him to follow.