A far greater success as a pedagogue enjoyed Nijeradze.  His guitar and mandolin always hung in the dining room, secured to the nails with ribbons.  The guitar, with its soft, warm sounds, drew Liubka more than the irritating, metallic bleating of the mandolin.  When Nijeradze would come to them as a guest (three or four times a week, in the evening), she herself would take the guitar down from the wall, painstakingly wipe it off with a handkerchief, and hand it over to him.  He, having fussed for some time with the tuning, would clear his throat, put one leg over the other, negligently throw himself against the back of the chair, and begin in a throaty little tenor, a trifle hoarse, but pleasant and true: 

    “The trea-cha-rous sa-ound av akissing
    Resahounds through the quiet night air;
    Tuh all fla-ming hearts it is pleasing,
    And given tuh each lovin’ pair.

    For a single mohoment of mee-ting ...”

And at this he would pretend to swoon away from his own singing, shut his eyes, toss his head in the passionate passages or during the pauses, tearing his right hand away from the strings; would suddenly turn to stone, and for a second would pierce Liubka’s eyes with his languorous, humid, sheepish eyes.  He knew an endless multitude of ballads, catches, and old-fashioned, jocose little pieces.  Most of all pleased Liubka the universally familiar Armenian couplets about Karapet: 

    “Karapet has a buffet,
     On the buffet’s a confet,
     On the confet’s a portret—­
     That’s the self-same Karapet.”

[Footnote:  Anglice, “confet” is a bon-bon; “portret,” a portrait.  —­Trans.]

Of these couplets (in the Caucasus they are called kinto-uri—­the song of the peddlers) the prince knew an infinite many, but the absurd refrain was always one and the same: 

    “Bravo, bravo, Katenka,
     Katerin Petrovna,
     Don’t you kiss me on the cheek—­a,
     Kiss the backs of my head.”

These couplets Nijeradze always sang in a diminished voice, preserving on his face an expression of serious astonishment about Karapet; while Liubka laughed until it hurt, until tears came, until she had nervous spasms.  Once, carried away, she could not restrain herself and began to chime in with him, and their singing proved to be very harmonious.  Little by little, when she had by degrees completely ceased to be embarrassed before the prince, they sang together more and more frequently.  Liubka proved to have a very soft and low contralto, even though thin, on which her past life with its colds, drinking, and professional excesses had left absolutely no traces.  And mainly—­which was already a curious gift of God—­she possessed an instinctive, inherent ability very exactly, beautifully, and always originally, to carry on the second voice.  There came a time toward the end of their acquaintance, when Liubka did not beg the prince, but the prince Liubka, to sing some one of the beloved songs of the people, of which she knew a multitude.  And so, putting her elbow on the table, and propping up her head with her palm, like a peasant woman, she would start off to the cautious, painstaking, quiet accompaniment: