“I am going to-morrow, aunt.”
“Where?”
“Home to Vassilyevskoe.”
“To-morrow?”
“Yes, to-morrow.”
“Well, if to-morrow it must be. God bless
you—you know best. Only mind you
come and say good-bye to me.” The old woman
patted his cheek. “I did not think I should
be here to see you; not that I have made up my mind
to die yet a while—I shall last another
ten years, I daresay: all we Pestovs live long;
your late grandfather used to say we had two lives;
but you see there was no telling how much longer you
were going to dangle about abroad. Well, you’re
a fine lad, a fine lad; can you lift twenty stone
with one hand as you used to do, eh? Your late
pap was fantastical in some things, if I may say so;
but he did well in having that Swiss to bring you
up; do you remember you used to fight with your fists
with him?—gymnastics, wasn’t it they
called it? But there, why I am gabbling away
like this; I have only been hindering Mr. PanSHIN (she
never pronounced his name PANshin as was correct) from
holding forth. Besides, we’d better go
and have tea; yes, let’s go on to the terrace,
my boy, and drink it there; we have some real cream,
not like what you get in your Londons and Parises.
Come along, come along, and you, Fedusha, give me
your arm. Oh! but what an arm it is! Upon
my word, no fear of my stumbling with you!”
Every one got up and went out on to the terrace, except
Gedeonovsky, who quietly took his departure.
During the whole of Lavretsky’s conversation
with Marya Dmitrievna, Panshin, and Marfa Timofyevna,
he sat in a corner, blinking attentively, with an
open mouth of childish curiosity; now he was in haste
to spread the news of the new arrival through the
town.
At eleven o’clock on the evening of the same
day, this is what was happening in Madame Kalitin’s
house. Downstairs, Vladimir Nikolaitch, seizing
a favourable moment, was taking leave of Lisa at the
drawing-room door, and saying to her, as he held her
hand, “You know who it is draws me here; you
know why I am constantly coming to your house; what
need of words when all is clear as it is?” Lisa
did not speak, and looked on the ground, without smiling,
with her brows slightly contracted, and a flush on
her cheek, but she did not draw away her hands.
While up-stairs, in Marfa Timofyevna’s room,
by the light of a little lamp hanging before the tarnished
old holy images, Lavretsky was sitting in a low chair,
his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his
hands; the old woamn, standing before him, now and
then silently stroked his hair. He spent more
than an hour with her, after taking leave of his hostess;
he had scarcely said anything to his kind old friend,
and she did not question him . . . . Indeed, what
need to speak, what was there to ask? Without
that she understood all, and felt for everything of
which his heart was full.
