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merits and defects of music of the Wagner school. Levin maintained
that the mistake of Wagner and all his followers lay in their trying to
take music into the sphere of another art, just as poetry goes wrong
when it tries to paint a face as the art of painting ought to do, and as an
instance of this mistake he cited the sculptor who carved in marble
certain poetic phantasms flitting round the figure of the poet on the
pedestal. “These phantoms were so far from being phantoms that they
were positively clinging on the ladder,” said Levin. The comparison
pleased him, but he could not remember whether he had not used the
same phrase before, and to Pestsov, too, and as he said it he felt con-
fused.
Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attain its highest
manifestations only by conjunction with all kinds of art.
The second piece that was performed Levin could not hear. Pestsov,
who was standing beside him, was talking to him almost all the time,
condemning the music for its excessive affected assumption of simplic-
ity, and comparing it with the simplicity of the Pre-Raphaelites in
painting. As he went out Levin met many more acquaintances, with
whom he talked of politics, of music, and of common acquaintances.
Among others he met Count Bol, whom he had utterly forgotten to call
upon.
“Well, go at once then,” Madame Lvova said, when he told her;
“perhaps they’ll not be at home, and then you can come to the meeting
to fetch me. You’ll find me still there.”
Chapter 6.
“Perhaps they’re not at home?” said Levin, as he went into the hall
of Countess Bola’s house.
“At home; please walk in,” said the porter, resolutely removing his
overcoat.
“How annoying!” thought Levin with a sigh, taking off one glove
and stroking his hat. “What did I come for? What have I to say to
them?”
As he passed through the first drawing room Levin met in the
doorway Countess Bola, giving some order to a servant with a care-
worn and severe face. On seeing Levin she smiled, and asked him to
come into the little drawing room, where he heard voices. In this room
there were sitting in armchairs the two daughters of the countess, and
a Moscow colonel, whom Levin knew. Levin went up, greeted them,
and sat down beside the sofa with his hat on his knees.
“How is your wife? Have you been at the concert? We couldn’t go.
Mamma had to be at the funeral service.”
“Yes, I heard.... What a sudden death!” said Levin.
The countess came in, sat down on the sofa, and she too asked
after his wife and inquired about the concert.
Levin answered, and repeated an inquiry about Madame
Apraksina’s sudden death.