“I can’t tell you, dear ...  Wait! ...  Haven’t I some friend among the professors, in the medical world? ...  I will look later in my memo-books.  Perhaps we will succeed in doing something.”

“Besides that,” continued Tamara, “I want to bury her ...  At my expense ...  I was attached to her with all my heart during her life.”

“I will help you with pleasure in this, materially...”

“No, no! ...  A thousand thanks! ...  I’ll do everything myself.  I would not hesitate to have recourse to your kind heart, but this ... —­you will understand me—­ ... this is something in the nature of a vow, that a person gives to one’s self and to the memory of a friend.  The main difficulty is in how we may manage to bury her with Christian rites.  She was, it seems, an unbeliever, or believed altogether poorly.  And it’s only by chance that I, also, will cross my forehead.  But I don’t want them to bury her just like a dog, somewhere beyond the enclosure of the cemetery; in silence, without words, without singing ...  I don’t know, will they permit burying her properly—­with choristers, with priests?  For that reason I’m asking you to assist me with your advice.  Or, perhaps, you will direct me somewhere? ...”

Now the artiste had little by little become interested and was already beginning to forget about her fatigue, and migraine, and the consumptive heroine dying in the fourth act.  She was already picturing the role of an intercessor, the beautiful figure of genius merciful to a fallen woman.  This was original, extravagant, and at the same time so theatrically touching!  Rovinskaya, like many of her confreres, did not let one day pass by—­and, if it were possible, she would not have let pass even one hour—­without standing out from the crowd, without compelling people to talk about her:  to-day she would participate in a pseudo-patriotic manifestation, while to-morrow she would read from a platform, for the benefit of revolutionaries exiled to Siberia, inciting verses, full of fire and vengeance.  She loved to sell flowers at carnivals, in riding academies; and to sell champagne at large balls.  She would think up her little bon mots beforehand, which on the morrow would be caught up by the whole town.  She desired that everywhere and always the crowd should look only at her, repeat her name, love her Egyptian, green eyes, her rapacious and sensuous mouth; her emeralds on the slender and nervous hands.

“I can’t grasp it all properly at once,” said she after a silence.  “But if a person wants anything hard, he will attain it, and I want to fulfill your wish with all my soul.  Stay, stay! ...  I think a glorious thought is coming into my head ...  For then, on that evening, if I mistake not, there was with us, beside the baroness and me...”

“I don’t know them ...  One of them walked out of the cabinet later than all of you.  He kissed Jennie’s hand and said, that if she should ever need him, he was always at her service; and gave her his card, but asked her not to show it to any strangers.  But later all this passed off somehow and was forgotten.  In some way I never found the time to ask Jennie who this man was; while yesterday I searched for the card but couldn’t find it...”