seven hundred roubles to gilding the “cumpola” of the church, and informed them of a sure remedy against freckles.  Lavretsky tried to sit near Lisa, but her manner was severe, almost stern, and she did not once glance at him.  She appeared intentionally not to observe him; a kind of cold, grave enthusiasm seemed to have taken possession of her.  Lavretsky for some reason or other tried to smile and to say something amusing; but there was perplexity in his heart, and he went away at last in secret bewilderment . . . .  He felt there was something in Lisa to which he could never penetrate.

Another time Lavretsky was sitting in the drawing-room listening to the sly but tedious gossip of Gedeonovsky, when suddenly, without himself knowing why, he turned round and caught a profound, attentive questioning look in Lisa’s eyes . . . .  It was bent on him, this enigmatic look.  Lavretsky thought of it the whole night long.  His love was not like a boy’s; sighs and agonies were not in his line, and Lisa herself did not inspire a passion of that kind; but for every age love has its tortures—­and he was spared none of them.

Chapter XXXIII

One day Lavretsky, according to his habit, was at the Kalitins’.  After an exhaustingly hot day, such a lovely evening had set in that Marya Dmitrievna, in spite of her aversion to a draught, ordered all the windows and doors into the garden to be thrown open, and declared that she would not play cards, that it was a sin to play cards in such weather, and one ought to enjoy nature.  Panshin was the only guest.  He was stimulated by the beauty of the evening, and conscious of a flood of artistic sensations, but he did not care to sing before Lavretsky, so he fell to reading poetry; he read aloud well, but too self-consciously and with unnecessary refinements, a few poems of Lermontov (Pushkin had not then come into fashion again).  Then suddenly, as though ashamed of his enthusiasm, began, a propos of the well-known poem, “A Reverie,” to attack and fall foul of the younger generation.  While doing so he did not lose the opportunity of expounding how he would change everything! after his own fashion, if the power were in his hands.  “Russia,” he said, “has fallen behind Europe; we must catch her up.  It is maintained that we are young—­that’s nonsense.  Moreover we have no inventiveness:  Homakov himself admits that we have not even invented mouse-traps.  Consequently, whether we will or no, we must borrow from others.  We are sick, Lermontov says—­I agree with him.  But we are sick from having only half become Europeans, we must take a hair of the dog that bit us ("le cadastre,” thought Lavretsky).  “The best head, les meilleures tetes,” he continued, “among us have long been convinced of it.  All peoples are essentially alike; only introduce among them good institutions, and the thing is done.  Of course there may be adaptation to the existing national life;