Lavretsky merely shrugged his shoulders.

"And besides, what a little angel your Adochka is! What a charming little creature! How pretty she is! and how good! and how well she speaks French! And she knows Russian too. She called me aunt in Russian. And then as to shyness, you know, almost all children of her age are shy; but she is not at all so. It's wonderful how like you she is, Fedor Ivanich—eyes, eyebrows, in fact you all over—absolutely you. I don't usually like such young children, I must confess, but I am quite in love with your little daughter."

"Maria Dmitrievna," abruptly said Lavretsky, "allow me to inquire why you are saying all this to me?"

"Why?"—Maria Dmitrievna again had recourse to her Eau-de-Cologne and drank some water—"why I say this to you, Fedor Ivanich, is because—you see I am one of your relations, I take a deep interest in you. I know your heart is excellent. Mark my words, mon cousin—at all events I am a woman of experience, and I do not speak at random. Forgive, do forgive your wife!". (Maria Dmitrievna's eyes suddenly filled with tears.) "Only think—youth, inexperience, and perhaps also a bad example—hers was not the sort of mother to put her in the right way. Forgive her, Fedor Ivanich! She has been punished enough."

The tears flowed down Maria Dmitrievna's cheeks. She did not wipe them away; she was fond of weeping. Meanwhile Lavretsky sat as if on thorns. "Good God!" he thought, "what torture this is! What a day this has been for me!"

"You do not reply," Maria Dmitrievna recommenced: "how am I to understand you? Is it possible that you can be so cruel? No, I cannot believe that. I feel that my words have convinced you. Fedor Ivanich, God will reward you for your goodness! Now from my hands receive your wife!"

Lavretsky jumped up from his chair scarcely knowing what he was doing. Maria Dmitrievna had risen also, and had passed rapidly to the other side of the screen, from behind which she brought out Madame Lavretsky. Pale, half lifeless, with downcast eyes, that lady seemed as if she had surrendered her whole power of thinking or willing for herself, and had given herself over entirely into the hands of Maria Dmitrievna.

Lavretsky recoiled a pace.

"You have been there all this time!" he exclaimed.

"Don't blame her," Maria Dmitrievna hastened to say. "She wouldn't have stayed for any thing; but I made her stay; I put her behind the screen. She declared that it would make you angrier than ever; but I wouldn't even listen to her. I know you better than she does. Take then from my hands your wife! Go to him, Varvara; have no fear; fall at your husband's feet" (here she gave Varvara's arm a pull), "and may my blessing—"

"Stop, Maria Dmitrievna!" interposed Lavretsky, in a voice shaking with emotion. "You seem to like sentimental scenes." (Lavretsky was not mistaken; from her earliest school-days Maria Dmitrievna had always been passionately fond of a touch of stage effect.) "They may amuse you, but to other people they may prove very unpleasant. However, I am not going to talk to you. In this scene you do not play the leading part."

"What is it you want from me, Madame?" he added, turning to his wife. "Have I not done for you all that I could? Do not tell me that it was not you who got up this scene. I should not believe you. You know that I cannot believe you. What is it you want? You are clever. You do nothing without an object. You must feel that to live with you, as I used formerly to live, is what I am not in a position to do—not because I am angry with you, but because I have become a different man. I told you that the very day you returned; and at that time you agreed with me in your own mind. But, perhaps, you wish to rehabilitate yourself in public opinion. Merely to live in my house is too little for you; you want to live with me under the same roof. Is it not so?"

"I want you to pardon me," replied Varvara Pavlovna, without lifting her eyes from the ground.

"She wants you to pardon her," repeated Maria Dmitrievna.

"And not for my own sake, but for Ada's," whispered Varvara.

"Not for her own sake, but for your Ada's," repeated Maria Dmitrievna.

"Very good! That is what you want?" Lavretsky just managed to say. "Well, I consent even to that."

Varvara Pavlovna shot a quick glance at him. Maria Dmitrievna exclaimed, "Thank God!" again took Varvara by the arm, and again began, "Take, then, from my hands—"

"Stop, I tell you!" broke in Lavretsky. "I will consent to live with you, Varvara Pavlovna," he continued; "that is to say, I will take you to Lavriki, and live with you as long as I possibly can. Then I will go away; but I will visit you from time to time. You see, I do not wish to deceive you; only do not ask for more than that. You would laugh yourself, if I were to fulfil the wish of our respected relative, and press you to my heart—if I were to assure you that—that the past did not exist, that the felled tree would again produce leaves. But I see this plainly—one must submit. These words do not convey the same meaning to you as to me, but that does not matter. I repeat, I will live with you—or, no, I cannot promise that; but I will no longer avoid you; I will look on you as my wife again—"

"At all events, give her your hand on that," said Maria Dmitrievna, whose tears had dried up long ago.

"I have never yet deceived Varvara Pavlovna," answered Lavretsky. "She will believe me as it is. I will take her to Lavriki. But remember this, Varvara Pavlovna. Our treaty will be considered at an end, as soon as you give up stopping there. And now let me go away."

He bowed to both of the ladies, and went out quickly.

"Won't you take her with you?" Maria Dmitrievna called after him.

"Let him alone," said Varvara to her in a whisper, and then began to express her thanks to her, throwing her arms around her, kissing her hand, saying she had saved her.

Maria Dmitrievna condescended to accept her caresses, but in reality she was not contented with her; nor was she contented with Lavretsky, nor with the whole scene which she had taken so much pains to arrange. There had been nothing sentimental about it.

According to her ideas Varvara Pavlovna ought to have thrown herself at her husband's feet.

"How was it you didn't understand what I meant?" she kept saying. "Surely I said to you, 'Down with you!'"

"It is better as it is, my dear aunt. Don't disturb yourself—all has turned out admirably," declared Varvara Pavlovna.

"Well, anyhow he is—as cold as ice," said Maria Dmitrievna. "It is true you didn't cry, but surely my tears flowed before his eyes. So he wants to shut you up at Lavriki. What! You won't be able to come out even to see me! All men are unfeeling," she ended by saying, and shook her head with an air of deep meaning.

"But at all events women can appreciate goodness and generosity," said Varvara Pavlovna. Then, slowly sinking on her knees, she threw her arms around Maria Dmitrievna's full waist, and hid her face in that lady's lap. That hidden face wore a smile, but Maria Dmitrievna's tears began to flow afresh.

As for Lavretsky, he returned home, shut himself up in his valet's room, flung himself on the couch, and lay there till the morning.



XLII.

The next day was Sunday. Lavretsky was not awakened by the bells which clanged for early Mass, for he had not closed his eyes all night; but they reminded him of another Sunday, when he went to church at Liza's request. He rose in haste. A certain secret voice told him that to-day also he would see her there. He left the house quietly, telling the servant to say to Varvara Pavlovna, who was still asleep, that he would be back to dinner, and then, with long steps, he went where the bell called him with its dreary uniformity of sound.

He arrived early; scarcely any one was yet in the church. A Reader was reciting the Hours in the choir. His voice, sometimes interrupted by a cough, sounded monotonously, rising and falling by turns. Lavretsky placed himself at a little distance from the door. The worshippers arrived, one after another, stopped, crossed themselves, and bowed in all directions. Their steps resounded loudly through the silent and almost empty space, and echoed along the vaulted roof. An infirm old woman, wrapped in a threadbare hooded cloak, knelt by Lavretsky's side and prayed fervently. Her toothless, yellow, wrinkled face expressed intense emotion. Her bloodshot eyes gazed upwards, without moving, on the holy figures displayed upon the iconostasis. Her bony hand kept incessantly coming out from under her cloak, and making the sign of the cross—with a slow and sweeping gesture, and with steady pressure of the fingers on the forehead and the body. A peasant with a morose and thickly-bearded face, his hair and clothes all in disorder, came into the church, threw himself straight down on his knees, and immediately began crossing and prostrating himself, throwing back his head and shaking it after each inclination. So bitter a grief showed itself in his face and in all his gestures, that Lavretsky went up to him and asked him what was the matter. The peasant sank back with an air of distrust; then, looking at him coldly, said in a hurried voice, "My son is dead," and again betook himself to his prostrations.

"What sorrow can they have too great to defy the consolations of the Church?" thought Lavretsky, and he tried to pray himself. But his heart seemed heavy and hardened, and his thoughts were afar off. He kept waiting for Liza; but Liza did not come. The church gradually filled with people, but he did not see Liza among them. Mass began, the deacon read the Gospel, the bell sounded for the final prayer. Lavretsky advanced a few steps, and suddenly he caught sight of Liza. She had come in before him, but he had not observed her till now. Standing in the space between the wall and the choir, to which she had pressed as close as possible, she never once looked round, never moved from her place. Lavretsky did not take his eyes off her till the service was quite finished; he was bidding her a last farewell. The congregation began to disperse, but she remained standing there. She seemed to be waiting for Lavretsky to go away. At last, however, she crossed herself for the last time, and went out without turning round. No one but a maid-servant was with her.

Lavretsky followed her out of the church, and came up with her in the street. She was walking very fast, her head drooping, her veil pulled low over her face.

"Good-day, Lizaveta Mikhailovna," he said in a loud voice, with feigned indifference. "May I accompany you?"

She made no reply. He walked on by her side.

"Are you satisfied with me?" he asked, lowering his voice. "You have heard what took place yesterday, I suppose?"

"Yes, yes," she answered in a whisper; "that was very good;" and she quickened her pace.

"Then you are satisfied?"

Liza only made a sign of assent.

"Fedor Ivanovich," she began, presently, in a calm but feeble voice, "I wanted to ask you something. Do not come any more to our house. Go away soon. We may see each other by-and-by—some day or other—a year hence, perhaps. But now, do this for my sake. In God's name, I beseech you, do what I ask!"

"I am ready to obey you in every thing, Lizaveta Mikhailovna. But can it be that we must part thus? Is it possible that you will not say a single word to me?"

"Fedor Ivanovich, you are walking here by my side. But you are already so far, far away from me; and not only you, but—"

"Go on, I entreat you!" exclaimed Lavretsky. "What do you mean?"

"You will hear, perhaps—But whatever it may be, forget—No, do not forget me—remember me."

"I forget you?"

"Enough. Farewell. Please do not follow me."

"Liza—" began Lavretsky.

"Farewell, farewell!" she repeated, and then, drawing her veil still lower over her face, she went away, almost at a run.

Lavretsky looked after her for a time, and then walked down the street with drooping head. Presently he ran against Lemm, who also was walking along with his hat pulled low over his brows, and his eyes fixed on his feet.

They looked at each other for a time in silence.

"Well, what have you to say?" asked Lavretsky at last.

"What have I to say?" replied Lemm, in a surly voice. "I have nothing to say. 'All is dead and we are dead.' ('Alles ist todt und wir sind todt.') Do you go to the right?"

"Yes."

"And I am going to the left. Good-bye."

* * * * *

On the following morning Lavretsky took his wife to Lavriki. She went in front in a carriage with Ada and Justine. He followed behind in a tarantass. During the whole time of the journey, the little girl never stirred from the carriage-window. Every thing astonished her: the peasant men and women, the cottages, the wells, the arches over the horses' necks, the little bells hanging from them, and the numbers of rooks. Justine shared her astonishment. Varvara Pavlovna kept laughing at their remarks and exclamations. She was in excellent spirits; she had had an explanation with her husband before leaving O.

"I understand your position," she had said to him; and, from the expression of her quick eyes, he could see that she did completely understand his position. "But you will do me at least this justice—you will allow that I am an easy person to live with. I shall not obtrude myself on you, or annoy you. I only wished to ensure Ada's future; I want nothing more."

"Yes, you have attained all your ends," said Lavretsky.

"There is only one thing I dream of now; to bury myself for ever in seclusion. But I shall always remember your kindness—"

"There! enough of that!" said he, trying to stop her.

"And I shall know how to respect your tranquillity and your independence," she continued, bringing her preconcerted speech to a close.

Lavretsky bowed low. Varvara understood that her husband silently thanked her.

The next day they arrived at Lavriki towards evening. A week later Lavretsky went away to Moscow, having left five thousand roubles at his wife's disposal; and the day after Lavretsky's departure, Panshine appeared, whom Varvara Pavlovna had entreated not to forget her in her solitude. She received him in the most cordial manner; and, till late that night, the lofty rooms of the mansion and the very garden itself were enlivened by the sounds of music, and of song, and of joyous French talk. Panshine spent three days with Varvara Pavlovna. When saying farewell to her, and warmly pressing her beautiful hands, he promised to return very soon—and he kept his word.



XLIII.

Liza had a little room of her own on the second floor of her mother's house, a bright, tidy room, with a bedstead with white curtains in it, a small writing-table, several flower-pots in the corners and in front of the windows, and fixed against the wall a set of bookshelves and a crucifix. It was called the nursery; Liza had been born in it.

After coming back from the church where Lavretsky had seen her, she set all her things in order with even more than usual care, dusted every thing, examined all her papers and letters from her friends, and tied them up with pieces of ribbon, shut up all her drawers, and watered her flowers, giving each flower a caressing touch. And all this she did deliberately, quietly, with a kind of sweet and tranquil earnestness in the expression of her face. At last she stopped still in the middle of the room and looked slowly around her; then she approached the table over which hung the crucifix, fell on her knees, laid her head on her clasped hands, and remained for some time motionless. Presently Marfa Timofeevna entered the room and found her in that position. Liza did not perceive her arrival. The old lady went out of the room on tiptoe, and coughed loudly several times outside the door. Liza hastily rose and wiped her eyes, which shone, with gathered but not fallen tears.

"So I see you have arranged your little cell afresh," said Marfa Timofeevna, bending low over a young rose-tree in one of the flower-pots. "How sweet this smells!"

Liza looked at her aunt with a meditative air.

"What was that word you used?" she whispered.

"What word—what?" sharply replied the old lady. "It is dreadful," she continued, suddenly pulling off her cap and sitting down on Liza's bed. "It is more than I can bear. This is the fourth day I've been just as if I were boiling in a cauldron. I cannot any longer pretend I don't observe any thing. I cannot bear to see you crying, to see how pale and withered you are growing. I cannot—I cannot."

"But what makes you say that aunt?" said Liza. "There is nothing the matter with me, I—"

"Nothing?" exclaimed Marfa Timofeevna. "Tell that to some one else, not to me! Nothing! But who was on her knees just now? Whose eyelashes are still wet with tears? Nothing! Why, just look at yourself, what have you done to your face? where are your eyes gone? Nothing, indeed! As if I didn't know all!"

"Give me a little time, aunt. All this will pass away."

"Will pass away! Yes, but when? Good heavens! is it possible you have loved him so much? Why, he is quite an old fellow, Lizochka! Well, well! I don't deny he is a good man; will not bite; but what of that? We are all good people; the world isn't shut up in a corner, there will always be plenty of this sort of goodness."

"I can assure you all this will pass away—all this has already passed away."

"Listen to what I am going to tell you, Lizochka," suddenly said Marfa Timofeevna, making Liza sit down beside her on the bed, smoothing down the girl's hair, and setting her neckerchief straight while she spoke. "It seems to you, in the heat of the moment, as if it were impossible for your wound to be cured. Ah, my love, it is only death for which there is no cure. Only say to yourself, 'I won't give in—so much for him!' and you will be surprised yourself to see how well and how quickly it will all pass away. Only have a little patience."

"Aunt," replied Liza, "it has already passed away. All has passed away."

"Passed away! how passed away? Why your nose has actually grown peaky, and yet you say—'passed away.' Passed away indeed!"

"Yes, passed away, aunt—if only you are willing to help me," said Liza, with unexpected animation, and then threw her arms round Marfa Timofeevna's neck. "Dearest aunt, do be a friend to me, do help me, don't be angry with me, try to understand me—"

"But what is all this, what is all this, my mother? Don't frighten me, please. I shall cry out in another minute. Don't look at me like that: quick, tell me what is the meaning of all this!"

"I—I want—" Here Liza hid her face on Marfa Timofeevna's breast. "I want to go into a convent," she said in a low tone.

The old lady fairly bounded off the bed.

"Cross yourself, Lizochka! gather your senses together! what ever are you about? Heaven help you!" at last she stammered out. "Lie down and sleep a little, my darling. And this comes of your want of sleep, dearest."

Liza raised her head; her cheeks glowed.

"No, aunt," she said, "do not say that. I have prayed, I have asked God's advice, and I have made up my mind. All is over. My life with you here is ended. Such lessons are not given to us without a purpose; besides, it is not for the first time that I think of it now. Happiness was not for me. Even when I did indulge in hopes of happiness, my heart shuddered within me. I know all, both my sins and those of others, and how papa made our money. I know all, and all that I must pray away, must pray away. I grieve to leave you, I grieve for mamma and for Lenochka; but there is no help for it. I feel that it is impossible for me to live here longer. I have already taken leave of every thing, I have greeted every thing in the house for the last time. Something calls me away. I am sad at heart, and I would fain hide myself away for ever. Please don't hinder me or try to dissuade me; but do help me, or I shall have to go away by myself."

Marfa Timofeevna listened to her niece with horror.

"She is ill," she thought. "She is raving. We must send for a doctor; but for whom? Gedeonovsky praised some one the other day; but then he always lies—but perhaps he has actually told the truth this time."

But when she had become convinced that Liza was not ill, and was not raving—when to all her objections Liza had constantly made the same reply, Marfa Timofeevna was thoroughly alarmed, and became exceedingly sorrowful.

"But surely you don't know, my darling, what sort of life they lead in convents!" thus she began, in hopes of dissuading her. "Why they will feed you on yellow hemp oil, my own; they will dress you in coarse, very coarse clothing; they will make you go out in the cold; you will never be able to bear all this Lizochka. All these ideas of yours are Agafia's doing. It is she who has driven you out of your senses. But then she began with living, and with living to her own satisfaction. Why shouldn't you live too? At all events, let me die in peace, and then do as you please. And who on earth has ever known any one go into a convent for the sake of such-a-one—for a goat's beard—God forgive me—for a man! Why, if you're so sad at heart, you should pay a visit to a convent, pray to a saint, order prayers to be said, but don't put the black veil on your head, my batyushka, my matyushka."

And Marfa Timofeevna cried bitterly.

Liza tried to console her, wiped the tears from her eyes, and cried herself, but maintained her purpose unshaken. In her despair, Marfa Timofeevna tried to turn threats to account, said she would reveal every thing to Liza's mother; but that too had no effect. All that Liza would consent to do in consequence of the old lady's urgent entreaties, was to put off the execution of her plan for a half year. In return Marfa Timofeevna was obliged to promise that, if Liza had not changed her mind at the end of the six months, she would herself assist in the matter, and would contrive to obtain Madame Kalitine's consent.

* * * * *

As soon as the first cold weather arrived, in spite of her promise to bury herself in seclusion, Varvara Pavlovna, who had provided herself with sufficient funds, migrated to St. Petersburg. A modest, but pretty set of rooms had been found for her there by Panshine, who had left the province of O. rather earlier than she did. During the latter part of his stay in O., he had completely lost Madame Kalitine's good graces. He had suddenly given up visiting her, and indeed scarcely stirred away from Lavriki. Varvara Pavlovna had enslaved—literally enslaved him. No other word can express the unbounded extent of the despotic sway she exercised over him.

Lavretsky spent the winter in Moscow. In the spring of the ensuing year the news reached him that Liza had taken the veil in the B. convent, in one of the most remote districts of Russia.



EPILOGUE.

Eight years passed away. The spring had come again—

But we will first of all say a few words about the fate of Mikhalevich, Panshine, and Madame Lavretsky, and then take leave of them forever.

Mikhalevich, after much wandering to and fro, at last hit upon the business he was fitted for, and obtained the post of Head Inspector in one of the Government Educational Institutes. His lot thoroughly satisfies him, and his pupils "adore" him, though at the same time they mimic him. Panshine has advanced high in the service, and already aims at becoming the head of a department. He stoops a little as he walks; it must be the weight of the Vladimir Cross which hangs from his neck, that bends him forward. In him the official decidedly preponderates over the artist now. His face, though still quite young, has grown yellow, his hair is thinner than it used to be, and he neither sings nor draws any longer. But he secretly occupies himself with literature. He has written a little comedy in the style of a "proverb;" and—as every one who writes now constantly brings on the stage some real person or some actual fact—he has introduced a coquette into it, and he reads it confidentially to a few ladies who are very kind to him. But he has never married, although he has had many excellent opportunities for doing so. For that Varvara Pavlovna is to blame.

As for her, she constantly inhabits Paris, just as she used to do. Lavretsky has opened a private account for her with his banker, and has paid a sufficient sum to ensure his being free from her—free from the possibility of being a second time unexpectedly visited by her. She has grown older and stouter, but she is still undoubtedly handsome, and always dresses in taste. Every one has his ideal. Varvara Pavlovna has found hers—in the plays of M. Dumas fils. She assiduously frequents the theatres in which consumptive and sentimental Camelias appear on the boards; to be Madame Doche seems to her the height of human happiness. She once announced that she could not wish her daughter a happier fate. It may, however, be expected that destiny will save Mademoiselle Ada from that kind of happiness. From being a chubby, rosy child, she has changed into a pale, weak-chested girl, and her nerves are already unstrung. The number of Varvara Pavlovna's admirers has diminished, but they have not disappeared. Some of them she will, in all probability, retain to the end of her days. The most ardent of them in recent times has been a certain Zakurdalo-Skubyrnikof, a retired officer of the guard, a man of about thirty-eight years of age, wearing long mustaches, and possessing a singularly vigorous frame. The Frenchmen who frequent Madame Lavretsky's drawing-room call him le gros taureau de l'Ukraine. Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her fashionable parties, but he is in full possession of her good graces.

And so—eight years had passed away. Again spring shone from heaven in radiant happiness. Again it smiled on earth and on man. Again, beneath its caress, all things began to love, to flower, to sing.

The town of O. had changed but little in the course of these eight years, but Madame Kalitine's house had, as it were, grown young again. Its freshly-painted walls shone with a welcome whiteness, while the panes of its open windows flashed ruddy to the setting sun. Out of these windows there flowed into the street mirthful sounds of ringing youthful voices, of never-ceasing laughter. All the house seemed teeming with life and overflowing with irrepressible merriment. As for the former mistress of the house, she had been laid in the grave long ago. Maria Dmitrievna died two years after Liza took the veil. Nor did Marfa Timofeevna long survive her niece; they rest side by side in the cemetery of the town. Nastasia Carpovna also was no longer alive. During the course of several years the faithful old lady used to go every day to pray at her friend's grave. Then her time came, and her bones also were laid in the mould.

But Maria Dmitrievna's house did not pass into the hands of strangers, did not go out of her family—the nest was not torn to pieces. Lenochka, who had grown into a pretty and graceful girl; her betrothed, a flaxen locked officer of hussars; Maria Dmitrievna's son, who had only recently married at St. Petersburg, and had now arrived with his young bride to spend the spring in O.; his wife's sister, a sixteen-year-old Institute-girl, with clear eyes and rosy cheeks; and Shurochka, who had also grown up and turned out pretty—these were the young people who made the walls of the Kalitine house resound with laughter and with talk. Every thing was altered in the house, every thing had been made to harmonize with its new inhabitants. Beardless young servant-lads, full of fun and laughter, had replaced the grave old domestics of former days. A couple of setters tore wildly about and jumped upon the couches, in the rooms up and down which Roska, after it had grown fat, used to waddle seriously. In the stable many horses were stalled—clean-limbed canterers, smart trotters for the centre of the troika, fiery gallopers with platted manes for the side places, riding horses from the Don. The hours for breakfast, dinner, and supper, were all mixed up and confounded together. In the words of neighbors, "Such a state of things as never had been known before" had taken place.

On the evening of which we are about to speak, the inmates of the Kalitine house, of whom the eldest, Lenochka's betrothed, was not more than four-and-twenty, had taken to playing a game which was not of a very complicated nature, but which seemed to be very amusing to them, to judge by their happy laughter,—that of running about the rooms, and trying to catch each other. The dogs, too, ran about and barked; and the canaries which hung up in cages before the windows, straining their throats in rivalry, heightened the general uproar by the piercing accents of their shrill singing. Just as this deafening amusement had reached its climax, a tarantass, all splashed with mud, drew up at the front gate, and a man about forty-five years old, wearing a travelling dress, got out of it and remained standing as if bewildered.

For some time he stood at the gate without moving, but gazing at the house with observant eyes; then he entered the court-yard by the wicket-gate, and slowly mounted the steps. He encountered no one in the vestibule; but suddenly the drawing-room door was flung open, and Shurochka, all rosy red, came running out of the room; and directly afterwards, with shrill cries, the whole of the youthful band rushed after her. Suddenly, at the sight of an unknown stranger, they stopped short, and became silent; but the bright eyes which were fixed on him still retained their friendly expression, the fresh young faces did not cease to smile. Then Maria Dmitrievna's son approached the visitor, and politely asked what he could do for him.

"I am Lavretsky," said the stranger.

A friendly cry of greeting answered him—not that all those young people were inordinately delighted at the arrival of a distant and almost forgotten relative, but simply because they were ready to rejoice and make a noise over every pleasurable occurrence. They all immediately surrounded Lavretsky. Lenochka, as his old acquaintance, was the first to name herself, assuring him that, if she had had a very little more time, she would most certainly have recognized him; and then she introduced all the rest of the company to him, giving them all, her betrothed included, their familiar forms of name. The whole party then went through the dining-room into the drawing-room. The paper on the walls of both rooms had been altered, but the furniture remained just as it used to be. Lavretsky recognized the piano. Even the embroidery-frame by the window remained exactly as it had been, and in the very same position as of old; and even seemed to have the same unfinished piece of work on it which had been there eight years before. They placed him in a large arm-chair, and sat down gravely around him. Questions, exclamations, anecdotes, followed swiftly one after another.

"What a long time it is since we saw you last!" naively remarked Lenochka; "and we haven't seen Varvara Pavlovna either."

"No wonder!" her brother hastily interrupted her—"I took you away to St. Petersburg; but Fedor Ivanovich has lived all the time on his estate."

"Yes, and mamma too is dead, since then."

"And Marfa Timofeevna," said Shurochka.

"And Nastasia Corpovna," continued Lenochka, "and Monsieur Lemm."

"What? is Lemm dead too?" asked Lavretsky.

"Yes," answered young Kalitine. "He went away from here to Odessa. Some one is said to have persuaded him to go there, and there he died."

"You don't happen to know if he left any music behind?"

"I don't know, but I should scarcely think so."

A general silence ensued, and each one of the party looked at the others. A shade of sadness swept over all the youthful faces.

"But Matros is alive," suddenly cried Lenochka.

"And Gedeonovsky is alive," added her brother.

The name of Gedeonovsky at once called forth a merry laugh.

"Yes, he is still alive; and he tells stories just as he used to do," continued the young Kalitine—"only fancy! this mad-cap here" (pointing to his wife's sister the Institute-girl) "put a quantity of pepper into his snuff-box yesterday."

"How he did sneeze!" exclaimed Lenochka—and irrepressible laughter again broke out on all sides.

"We had news of Liza the other day," said young Kalitine. And again silence fell upon all the circle. "She is going on well—her health is gradually being restored now."

"Is she still in the same convent?" Lavretsky asked, not without an effort.

"Yes."

"Does she ever write to you?"

"No, never. We get news of her from other quarters."

A profound silence suddenly ensued. "An angel has noiselessly flown past," they all thought.

"Won't you go into the garden?" said Kalitine, addressing Lavretsky. "It is very pleasant now, although we have neglected it a little."

Lavretsky went into the garden, and the first thing he saw there was that very bench on which he and Liza had once passed a few happy moments—moments that never repeated themselves. It had grown black and warped, but still he recognized it, and that feeling took possession of his heart which is unequalled as well for sweetness as for bitterness—the feeling of lively regret, for vanished youth, for once familiar happiness.

He walked by the side of the young people along the alleys. The lime-trees looked older than before, having grown a little taller during the last eight years, and casting a denser shade. All the underwood, also, had grown higher, and the raspberry-bushes had spread vigorously, and the hazel copse was thickly tangled. From every side exhaled a fresh odor from the forest and the wood, from the grass and the lilacs.

"What a capital place for a game at Puss in the Corner!" suddenly cried Lenochka, as they entered upon a small grassy lawn surrounded by lime-trees. "There are just five of us."

"But have you forgotten Fedor Ivanovich?" asked her brother; "or is it yourself you have not counted?"

Lenochka blushed a little.

"But would Fedor Ivanovich like—at his age—" she began stammering.

"Please play away," hastily interposed Lavretsky; "don't pay any attention to me. I shall feel more comfortable if I know I am not boring you. And there is no necessity for your finding me something to do. We old people have a resource which you don't know yet, and which is better than any amusement—recollection."

The young people listened to Lavretsky with respectful, though slightly humorous politeness, just as if they were listening to a teacher who was reading them a lesson—then they all suddenly left him, and ran off to the lawn. One of them stood in the middle, the others occupied the four corners by the trees, and the game began.

But Lavretsky returned to the house, went into the dining-room, approached the piano, and touched one of the notes. It responded with a faint but clear sound, and a shudder thrilled his heart within him. With that note began the inspired melody, by means of which, on that most happy night long ago, Lemm, the dead Lemm, had thrown him into such raptures. Then Lavretsky passed into the drawing-room, and did not leave it for a long time.

In that room, in which he had seen Liza so often, her image floated more distinctly before him; the traces of her presence seemed to make themselves felt around him there. But his sorrow for her loss became painful and crushing; it bore with it none of the tranquillity which death inspires. Liza was still living somewhere, far away and lost to sight. He thought of her as he had known her in actual life; he could not recognize the girl he used to love in that pale, dim, ghostly form, half-hidden in a nun's dark robe, and surrounded by waving clouds of incense.

Nor would Lavretsky have been able to recognize himself, if he could have looked at himself as he in fancy was looking at Liza. In the course of those eight years his life had attained its final crisis—that crisis which many people never experience, but without which no man can be sure of maintaining his principles firm to the last. He had really given up thinking about his own happiness, about what would conduce to his own interests. He had become calm, and—why should we conceal the truth?—he had aged; and that not in face alone or frame, but he had aged in mind; for, indeed, not only is it difficult, but it is even hazardous to do what some people speak of—to preserve the heart young in bodily old age. Contentment, in old age, is deserved by him alone who has not lost his faith in what is good, his persevering strength of will, his desire for active employment. And Lavretsky did deserve to be contented; he had really become a good landlord; he had really learnt how to till the soil; and in that he labored, he labored not for himself alone, but he had, as far as in him lay the power, assured, and obtained guarantees for, the welfare of the peasantry on his estates.

Lavretsky went out of the house into the garden, and sat down on the bench he knew so well. There—on that loved spot, in sight of that house in which he had fruitlessly, and for the last time, stretched forth his hands towards that cup of promise in which foamed and sparkled the golden wine of enjoyment,—he, a lonely, homeless wanderer, while the joyous cries of that younger generation which had already forgotten him came flying to his ears, gazed steadily at his past life.

His heart became very sorrowful, but it was free now from any crushing sense of pain. He had nothing to be ashamed of; he had many sources of consolation. "Play on, young vigorous lives!" he thought—and his thoughts had no taint of bitterness in them—"the future awaits you, and your path of life in it will be comparatively easy for you. You will not be obliged, as we were, to seek out your path, to struggle, to fall, to rise again in utter darkness. We had to seek painfully by what means we might hold out to the end—and how many there were amongst us who did not hold out!—but your part is now to act, to work—and the blessing of old men like me shall be with you. For my part, after the day I have spent here, after the emotions I have here experienced, nothing remains for me but to bid you a last farewell; and, although sadly, yet without a tinge of envy, without a single gloomy feeling, to say, in sight of death, in sight of my awaiting God, 'Hail, lonely old age! Useless life, burn yourself out!'"

Lavretsky rose up quietly, and quietly went away. No one observed him, no one prevented him from going. Louder than ever sounded the joyous cries in the garden, behind the thick green walls of the lofty lime-trees. Lavretsky got into his tarantass, and told his coachman to drive him home without hurrying the horses.

* * * * *

"And is that the end?" the unsatisfied reader may perhaps ask. "What became of Lavretsky afterwards? and of Liza?" But what can one say about people who are still alive, but who have already quitted the worldly stage? Why should we turn back to them? It is said that Lavretsky has visited the distant convent in which Liza has hidden herself—and has seen her. As she crossed from choir to choir, she passed close by him—passed onwards steadily, with the quick but silent step of a nun, and did not look at him. Only an almost imperceptible tremor was seen to move the eyelashes of the eye which was visible to him; only still lower did she bend her emaciated face; and the fingers of her clasped hands, enlaced with her rosary, still more closely compressed each other.

Of what did they both think? what did they both feel? Who can know? who shall tell? Life has its moments—has its feelings—to which we may be allowed to allude, but on which it is not good to dwell.

THE END.