And Marfa Timofyevna wept bitterly.
Lisa comforted her, wiped away her tears and wept
herself, but remained unshaken. In her despair
Marfa Timofyevna had recourse to threats: to
tell her mother all about it . . . but that too was
of no avail. Only at the old lady’s most
earnest entreaties Lisa agreed to put off carrying
out her plan for six months. Marfa Timofyevna
was obliged to promise in return that if, within six
months, she did not change her mind, she would herself
help her and would do all she could to gain Marya
Dmitrievna’s consent.
In spite of her promise to bury herself in seclusion,
at the first approach of cold weather, Varvara Pavlovna,
having provided herself with funds, removed to Petersburg,
where she took a modest but charming set of apartments,
found for her by Panshin; who had left the O-----
district a little before. During the latter part
of his residence in O----- he had completely lost
Marya Dmitrievna’s good graces; he had suddenly
given up visiting her and scarcely stirred from Lavriky.
Varvara Pavolvna had enslaved him, literally enslaved
him, no other word can describe her boundless, irresistible,
unquestioned sway over him.
Lavretsky spent the winter in Moscow; and in the spring of the following
year the news reached him that Lisa had taken the veil in the B-----
convent, in one of the remote parts of Russia.
Eight years had passed by. Once more the spring
had come . . . . But we will say a few words
first of the fate of Mihalevitch, Panshin, and Madame
Laverestky—and then take leave of them.
Mihalevitch, after long wanderings, has at last fallen
in with exactly the right work for him; he has received
the position of senior superintendent of a government
school. He is very well content with his lot;
his pupils adore him, though they mimick him too.
Panshin has gained great advancement in rank, and
already has a directorship in view; he walks with a
slight stoop, caused doubtless by the weight round
his neck of the Vladimir cross which has been conferred
on him. The official in him has finally gained
the ascendency over the artist; his still youngish
face has grown yellow, and his hair scanty; he now
neither sings nor sketches, but applies himself in
secret to literature; he has written a comedy, in the
style of a “proverb,” and as nowadays all
writers have to draw a portrait of some one or something,
he has drawn in it the portrait of a coquette, and
he reads it privately to two or three ladies who look
kindly upon him. He has, however, not entered
upon matrimony, though many excellent opportunities
of doing so have presented themselves. For this
Varvara Pavlovna was responsible. As for her,
she lives constantly at Paris, as in former days.
Fedor Ivanitch has given her a promissory note for
a large sum, and has so secured immunity from the possibility
of her making a second sudden descent upon him.
