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Well, I'm convinced that it is as well as we can do for you the first time. So you'd better sign it now using us for witnesses and I'll carry 'em back to Merelli myself, to-morrow." So Ivan, lips twitching, hands trembling very much, put a shaky signature in each space indicated below Merelli's sprawling Italian dashes, while Nicholas and little Laroche looked on with shining eyes.
It was, moreover, rumored that the summer of Monsieur Gregoriev had been no idle one; but that, he having turned for the first time to a serious subject, Moscow would that winter have the opportunity of gauging the young man's talent at the Grand Theatre, when, in November, Signor Merelli's Italian troupe should begin their season of winter opera.
She went to the end of the shop and called the lad, who came instantly. "Tell me," asked the shopwoman, "do you remember whether Merelli's young man went occasionally to carry letters to a woman in service, in the house of the son of the country?" "To Signor Mequinez," replied the lad; "yes, signora, sometimes he did. At the end of the street del los Artes." "Ah! thanks, signora!" cried Marco.
And the result of Merelli's last, special appeal, Ivan had not cared to learn. These incidents, and many earlier ones of his long season of trial, whirled in a numbing chaos through Ivan's tired brain, wreathing themselves in malevolent phantasies about the undimmed picture of his bald failure at the concert, in the presence of his father.
Thereupon began the era of a new and difficult experience. Healthy as was the occupation, Ivan wished a hundred times in those ensuing weeks that he had been seized with an apoplexy before ever he had put his name to the contract that gave him into Merelli's hands. As a matter of fact, the ordeal was one trying enough for nerveless men.
Then he said quickly, "Merelli knew my mother; my mother who was at service with Signor Mequinez. He alone could tell me where she is. I have come to America to find my mother. Merelli sent her our letters. I must find my mother." "Poor boy!" said the woman; "I don't know. I can ask the boy in the courtyard. He knew the young man who did Merelli's errands. He may be able to tell us something."
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