He began talking about music, about Lisa, then of music again. He seemed to enunciate his words more slowly when he spoke of Lisa. Lavretsky turned the conversation on his compositions, and half in jest, offered to write him a libretto.

“H’m, a libretto!” replied Lemm; “no, that is not in my line; I have not now the liveliness, the play of the imagination, which is needed for an opera; I have lost too much of my power . . . But if I were still able to do something,— I should be content with a song; of course, I should like to have beautiful words . . .”

He ceased speaking, and sat a long while motionless, his eyes lifted to the heavens.

“For instance,” he said at last, “something in this way: ‘Ye stars, ye pure stars!’”

Lavretsky turned his face slightly towards him and began to look at him.

“‘Ye stars, pure stars,’” repeated Lemm . . . “‘You look down upon the righteous and guilty alike . . but only the pure in heart,’— or something of that kind —‘comprehend you’— that is, no —‘love you.’ But I am not a poet. I’m not equal to it! Something for that kind, though, something lofty.”

Lemm pushed his hat on to the back of his head; in the dim twilight of the clear night his face looked paler and younger.

“‘And you too,’” he continued, his voice gradually sinking, “‘ye know who loves, who can love, because, pure ones, ye alone can comfort’ . . . No, that’s not it at all! I am not a poet,” he said, “but something of that sort.”

“I am sorry I am not a poet,” observed Lavretsky.

“Vain dreams!” replied Lemm, and he buried himself in the corner of the carr............