Nikolai was there at the studio when a messenger brought Nita, one afternoon, a note from M. Sylvain, which, having scarcely opened, she handed to Sophie, who read it aloud:
"_Vous êtes reçue avec acclamation No_. 1. _Espère une medaille_. Sylvain."
Nita grew very pale; she trembled in her whole frame, and began suddenly to cry. This triumph, which he had been the first to prophesy, and which made him proud and happy for her, at the same time made Nikolai's heart very heavy. "She is through and through an artist nature," said he to himself as he observed her great excitement; "much more than she herself knows." And in that he was not mistaken.
Naturally, on varnishing day he was at the Palais de l'Industrie. Not without a certain excitement, he wandered up the great steps between painters, journalists, models, and curious ones. Three times he made the rounds through all the rooms seeking her picture, and as yet he had not found it. But there! Was not that the picture almost concealed by a crowd of admirers and critics? Nikolai found his way through and gazed at the picture. It hung on the middle of the wall, on the line.
For Nikolai naturally the whole Salon was a mere trifle to her picture, and if the admiration of others was of no such large dimension, the success of the picture was still great, decisive.
And Nikolai sat down opposite the picture, listened to every word, every enthusiastic expression, and imprinted them upon his memory so as to tell them to her. He waited for her. She would surely come in the course of the day to see her work. The crowd had not diminished. A critic took notes of it, a painter, with nose close to the canvas, made gestures expressive of his delight at the drawing.
Then Nikolai heard a step, looked round--yes, there she was, tall, slender, with the proud carriage of her head, and her never-to-be-forgotten eyes. The gloomy shadow was still in her eyes, the shadow which never left them. Nevertheless, she enjoyed her triumph, and it became her. She bore it modestly, but still as if it were perfectly natural.
Nikolai had never seen her so charming. She wore a simple, soft, clinging woollen dress, a little bonnet fastened under her chin.
He sprang up. "An immense success," cried he to her. She laid her finger on her lips.