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:
"Oh, the nights have grown tiresome to me, and
wearisome;
To be parted from my dearie, from my mate!
Oh, haven't I myself, woman-like, done a foolish
thing--
Have stirred up the wrath of my own darling:
When I did call him a bitter drunkard! ..."
"Bitter drunkard!" the prince would repeat the last words together
with her, and would forlornly toss his curly head, inclined to one
side; and they both tried to end the song so that the scarcely
seizable quivering of the guitar strings and the voice might by
degrees grow quiet, and that it might not be possible to note when
the sound ended and the silence came.
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