He was used to being liked by everyone, old and young, and he imagined that he understood human nature, particularly women: he knew well enough their common weaknesses. As a man not entirely alien to things artistic, he sensed in himself a certain fire, a certain enthusiasm, even a high-flown zeal and as a consequence permitted himself to deviate in various ways from the rules by making merry and associating with those who did not belong to high society and generally by being free and easy. But basically he was cold and devious, and even during the wildest of debauches his clever brown eyes were ever watchful and on guard; this bold, this free-and-easy young man could never forget himself and abandon himself completely. In fairness to him it must be said that he never boasted of his conquests. He made his appearance in Marya Dmitrievna’s house immediately upon arrival in O… and was soon quite at home there. Marya Dmitrievna doted on him.

Panshin bowed graciously to everyone in the room, shook hands with Marya Dmitrievna and Lizaveta Mikhaylovna, tapped Gedeonovsky lightly on the shoulder and, turning on his heels, caught Lenochka by the head and kissed her on the temples.

‘Aren’t you afraid of riding such a frisky horse?’ Marya Dmitrievna asked him.

‘Oh, he’s actually quite quiet. But I’ll tell you what I am afraid of – I’m afraid of playing preference1 with Sergey Petrovich. Yesterday at the Belenitsyns’ he cleaned me out.’

Gedeonovsky broke into thin, sycophantic laughter: he sought to ingratiate himself with the brilliant young official from St Petersburg, the Governor’s favourite. In his conversations with Marya Dmitrievna he often referred to Panshin’s remarkable capabilities. Mark you, he would deliberate, how can one fail to sing his praises? The young man shone in the highest spheres of life and was also an exemplary civil servant, and there wasn’t a trace of arrogance in him. As a matter of fact, even in St Petersburg Panshin was regarded as a businesslike official: his hands were always busy, although he talked slightingly of his work as befitted a man of the world who ascribes little significance to his labours; yet he was an ‘executive type’. Heads of departments like that kind of subordinate; he himself never doubted that, if he wished, he would in time become a minister.

‘You are good enough to say that I cleaned you out,’ said Gedeonovsky, ‘but who was it last week that won twelve roubles off me? What’s more…’

‘Naughty, naughty,’ Panshin interrupted with agreeable but ever so slightly disdainful negligence and, turning away, approached Liza.

‘I haven’t been able to find the overture to Oberon2 here,’ he began. ‘Mrs Belenitsyn was only boasting when she said she had all the classics – in fact she has nothing except polkas and waltzes. But I’ve already written off to Moscow and in a week you’ll get the overture. By the way,’ he continued, ‘yesterday I wrote a new romance to my own words. Would you like me to sing it? I don’t know how it’s turned out. Mrs Belenitsyn found it very charming, but what she says means nothing at all. I’d like to know your opinion. Though I think it would perhaps be better later on.’

‘Why later on?’ interposed Marya Dmitrievna. ‘Why not now?’

‘Certainly,’ said Panshin, with a kind of bright and sugary smile which would appear on his face and vanish all in a flash, and nudged a chair forward with his knee, seated himself at the piano and then, having struck a few chords, began to sing the following romance with clear articulation of each word:

The moon sails high above in majesty

Amid the paling clouds;

But from on high it moves the billowy sea

With its enchanting powers.

My own heart’s sea does surely know

You are its moon,

So it is moved – in joy and woe –

By you alone.

My heart is full of love’s regret,

Of love’s dumb pain;

I pine…. But you are free of pain as yet,

Like that disdainful moon.3

The second verse was sung with particular expressiveness and force; the stormy accompaniment suggested the sound of billowing waves. After the words: ‘I pine…’ he gave a faint sigh, lowered his eyes and dropped his voice in a dying morendo. When he finished, Liza praised the motif, Marya Dmitrievna said: ‘Charming,’ and Gedeonovsky even exclaimed: ‘Entrancing! The words and the music – both equally entrancing!’ And Lenochka gazed at the singer with childish awe. In a word, everyone in the room very much enjoyed the young dilettante’s composition; but beyond the drawing-room door, in the hall, there stood a new arrival, an old man who, judging by the expression on his downcast face and the way he shrugged his shoulders, took no pleasure in hearing Panshin’s romance, despite all its charm. After a moment’s pause to flick the dust from his shoes with a thick handkerchief, this man suddenly screwed up his eyes, dolefully pursed his lips, bent his already bent back and slowly entered the drawing-room.

‘Ah, good day, Christopher Fyodorych!’ Panshin was the first to cry out and quickly jumped up from the chair. ‘I’d no idea you were here. Had I known you were, nothing on earth would have made me sing my romance. I know you’re not fond of light music’

‘I have not heart,’ said the new arrival in his poor Russian accent and, bowing to everyone, stopped awkwardly in the middle of the room.

‘Have you come, Monsieur Lemm,’ asked Marya Dmitrievna, ‘to give Liza her music lesson?’

‘No, not Lisafet Mikhaylovna, but Elen Mikhaylovna.’

‘Ah! Well, that’s splendid. Lenochka, go upstairs with Mr Lemm.’

The old man was about to follow the little girl out of the room, but Panshin stopped him.

‘Don’t go away after the lesson, Christopher Fyodorych,’ he said. ‘Lizaveta Mikhaylovna and I will be playing Beethoven’s Sonata for four hands.’

The old man muttered something under his breath, but Panshin continued in his badly pronounced German:

‘Lizaveta Mikhaylovna showed me the religious cantata which you brought her – a beautiful piece! You mustn’t think that I don’t know how to appreciate serious music.