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.

Epilogue

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.