Liza did not say a word in reply—she did
not ever smile. Slightly arching her eyebrows,
and growing rather red, she kept her eyes fixed on
the ground, but did not withdraw her hand. Up
stairs, in Marfa Timofeevna’s room, the light
of the lamp, which hung in the corner before the age-embrowned
sacred pictures, fell on Lavretsky, as he sat in an
arm-chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his face
hidden in his hands. In front of him stood the
old lady, who from time to time silently passed her
hand over his hair. He spent more than an hour
with her after taking leave of the mistress of the
house, he scarcely saying a word to his kind old friend,
and she not asking him any questions. And why
should he have spoken? what could she have asked?
She understood all so well, she so fully sympathized
with all the feelings which filled his heart.
VIII.
Fedor Ivanovich Lavretsky (we must ask our reader’s
permission to break off the thread of the story for
a time) sprang from a noble family of long descent.
The founder of the race migrated from Prussia during
the reign of Basil the Blind,[A] and was favored with
a grant of two hundred chetverts[B] of land
in the district of Biejetsk. Many of his descendants
filled various official positions, and were appointed
to governorships in distant places, under princes and
influential personages, but none of them obtained any
great amount of property, or arrived at a higher dignity,
than that of inspector of the Czar’s table.
[Footnote A: In the fifteenth century.]
[Footnote B: An old measure of land, variously
estimated at from two to six acres.]
The richest and most influential of all the Lavretskys
was Fedor Ivanovich’s paternal great-grandfather
Andrei, a man who was harsh, insolent, shrewd, and
crafty. Even up to the present day men have never
ceased to talk about his despotic manners, his furious
temper, his senseless prodigality, and his insatiable
avarice. He was very tall and stout, his complexion
was swarthy, and he wore no beard. He lisped,
and he generally seemed half asleep. But the more
quietly he spoke, the more did all around him tremble.
He had found a wife not unlike himself. She had
a round face, a yellow complexion, prominent eyes,
and the nose of a hawk. A gypsy by descent, passionate
and vindictive in temper, she refused to yield in
any thing to her husband, who all but brought her
to her grave, and whom, although she had been eternally
squabbling with him, she could net bear long to survive.
Andrei’s son, Peter, our Fedor’s grandfather,
did not take after his father. He was a simple
country gentleman; rather odd, noisy in voice and
slow in action, rough but not malicious, hospitable,
and devoted to coursing. He was more than thirty
years old when he inherited from his father two thousand
souls,[A] all in excellent condition; but he soon
began to squander his property, a part of which he
