Transcriber's Note:1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/asbeinfromlifeof00schuiala
ASBEÏN
FROM THE LIFE OF A VIRTUOSO
BY
OSSIP SCHUBIN
TRANSLATED BY ÉLISE L. LATHROP
NEW YORK
WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY
1890
Copyright, 1890, by
WORTHINGTON CO.
Press of J.J. Little & Co.,
Astor Place, New York.
ASBEÏN.[1]
FIRST BOOK.
"But--do you really not recognize me?" With these words, and withfriendly, outstretched hands, a young lady hastened toward a man who,with gloomily contracted brow, wrapped in thought, went on his waywithout noticing either her or his surroundings. He was foolish, forhis surroundings were picturesque--Rome, near the Fontana di Trevi, ona bright March afternoon. And the young lady--she was charming.
Although she had called to him in French, something about her--onecould scarcely have told what--betrayed the Russian; everything, thepampered woman from the highest circles of society.
The young man whose attention she had sought to attract in such aviolent and unconventional manner was just as evidently a Russian, butof quite a different condition. One could hardly decide to what fixedsphere of society he belonged, but one perceived immediately that hismanners had never been improved, polished, softened by societydiscipline, that he was no man of the world. He was, evidently, a manwho was apart from the rank and file, a man who stood far out from theconventional frame, a man whom no one could pass without twice lookingafter him. His form was large and somewhat heavy; his face, framed bydark, half-curled hair, in spite of the blunt profile, reminded one ofNapoleon Bonaparte, but Bonaparte in the first romantic period of hislife, before he had become fat and accustomed to pose for the classichead of Cæsar.
She was the Princess Natalie Alexandrovna Assanow; he the fêted violinvirtuoso and well-known composer, Boris Lensky.
She had run herself quite out of breath to catch up with him; twice shehad called to him before he heard her; then he looked around and liftedhis hat.
"Boris Nikolaivitch, do you not really recognize me?" said she, now inRussian, laughing and breathless.
"You here, Princess! Since when? Why have you given me no sign of yourexistence?" and he took both the slender girlish hands, stilloutstretched to him, in his.
"We only arrived here yesterday from Naples."
"Ah! and I go there to-day." His long-drawn words betrayed verysignificantly a certain vexation.
"Y