"Tolstoy, Leo - Albert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tolstoy Leo)

expression corresponded alluringly with that of the fresh lips, curved at
the corners, which showed from under his thin moustache.

Having advanced a few steps he stopped, turned to the young man, and
smiled. He seemed to smile with difficulty, but when the smile lit up his
face the young man - without knowing why - smiled too.

"Who is that?" he whispered to the servant, when the strange figure had
passed into the room from which came the sounds of a dance.

"A crazy musician from the theatre," replied the maid. "He comes sometimes
to see the mistress."

"Where have you been, Delesov?" someone just then called out, and the young
man, who was named Delesov, returned to the ballroom.

The musician was standing at the door and, looking at the dancers, showed
by his smile, his look, and the tapping of his foot, the satisfaction the
spectacle afforded him.

"Come in and dance yourself," said one of the visitors to him.

The musician bowed and looked inquiringly at the hostess.

"Go, go ... Why not, when the gentlemen ask you to?" she said.

The thin, weak limbs of the musician suddenly came into active motion, and
winking, smiling, and twitching, he began to prance awkwardly and heavily
about the room. In the middle of the quadrille a merry officer, who danced
very vivaciously and well, accidentally bumped into the musician with his
back. The latter's weak and weary legs did not maintain their balance and
after a few stumbling steps aside, he fell full length on the floor.
Notwithstanding the dull thud produced by his fall, at first nearly
everyone burst out laughing.

But the musician did not get up. The visitors grew silent and even the
piano ceased. Delesov and the hostess were the first to run up to the
fallen man. He was lying on his elbow, staring with dull eyes at the floor.
When they lifted him and seated him on a chair, he brushed the hair back
from his forehead with a quick movement of his bony hand and began to smile
without answering their questions.

"Mr. Albert! Mr. Albert!" said the hostess. "Have you hurt yourself? Where?
There now, I said you ought not to dance. He is so weak," she continued,
addressing her guests, " -- he can hardly walk. How could he dance?"

"Who is he?" they asked her.

"A poor man -- an artist. A very good fellow, but pitiable, as you see."