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So saying, he put on his three-cornered hat, and went into the ante-room, followed by the landlord hanging his head, and apparently engaged in meditation. "Thank God, Satan has carried them off!" said Tchartkoff, as he heard the outer door of the ante-room close.
The landlord entered with the constable of the district, whose presence is even more disagreeable to poor people than is the presence of a beggar to the rich. The landlord of the little house in which Tchartkoff lived resembled the other individuals who own houses anywhere in the Vasilievsky Ostroff, on the St.
The moon still shone into the room, bringing out from its dark corners here a canvass, there a lay figure, there again the drapery thrown over a chair, or a plaster cast on its bracket on the wall. Tchartkóff now perceived that he was not in bed, but on his feet, opposite the portrait. How he got there was a thing he could in no way comprehend.
"And whose likeness is this?" he continued, approaching the old man's portrait. "It is too terrible. Was he really so dreadful? Ah! why, he actually looks at one! What a thunder-cloud! From whom did you paint it?" "Ah! it is from a " said Tchartkoff, but did not finish his sentence: he heard a crack.
Covering his face with his hands, Tchartkóff stood silent, full of bitter thoughts, rapidly but minutely reviewing the whole of his past life. When he removed his hands he started, and a thrill passed over him, for he suddenly encountered the gaze of two piercing eyes glittering with a sombre lustre, and seeming to watch and enjoy his despair.
Tchartkoff set to work, posed his model, reflected a bit, fixed upon the idea, waved his brush in the air, settling the points mentally, and then began and finished the sketching in within an hour. Satisfied with it, he began to paint.
Tchartkóff was apt to indulge in the flashy and the superficial. But he had sufficient strength of mind to control this dangerous tendency, and a purer taste was gradually but perceptibly developing itself in him.
Tchartkóff felt his very soul chilled with fear. "Great God! what is this?" he cried, crossing himself in an agony of terror. And once more he awoke. For the third time he had dreamed a dream!
A lady entered, accompanied by a girl of eighteen, her daughter, and followed by a lackey in a furred livery-coat. "You are the painter Tchartkoff?" The artist bowed. "A great deal is written about you: your portraits, it is said, are the height of perfection." So saying, the lady raised her glass to her eyes and glanced rapidly over the walls, upon which nothing was hanging.
He had poetised, whilst faithfully representing, the commonest objects of external nature. A feeling of awe mingled with the admiration that kept the crowd profoundly silent. Not a whisper was heard, not a rustle or a sound, for some time after the arrival of Tchartkóff.
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