his face. His steadfast gaze
embarrassed Lisa, but he went on smiling.--"Well, God grant them
happiness!" he muttered at last, as though to himself, and turned away
his head.

Lisa flushed.

"You are mistaken, Fedor Ivanitch," she said: "you are wrong in thinking
.... But don't you like Vladimir Nikolaitch?" she asked suddenly.

"No, I don't."

"Why?"

"I think he has no heart."

The smile left Lisa's face.

"It is your habit to judge people severely," she observed after a long
silence.

"I don't think it is. What right have I to judge others severely, do you
suppose, when I must ask for indulgency myself? Or have you forgotten
that I am a laughing stock to everyone, who is not too indifferent even
to scoff?... By the way," he added, "did you keep your promise?"

"What promise?"

"Did you pray for me?"

"Yes, I prayed for you, and I pray for you every day. But please do not
speak lightly of that."

Lavretsky began to assure Lisa that the idea of doing so had never
entered his head, that he had the deepest reverence for every
conviction; then he went off into a discourse upon religion,
its significance in the history of mankind, the significance of
Christianity.

"One must be a Christian," observed Lisa, not without some effort, "not
so as to know the divine... and the... earthly, because every man has to
die."

Lavretsky raised his eyes in involuntary astonishment upon Lisa and met
her gaze.

"What a strange saying you have just uttered!" he said.

"It is not my saying," she replied.

"Not yours.... But what made you speak of death?"

"I don't know. I often think of it."

"Often?"

"Yes."

"One would not suppose so, looking at you now; you have such a bright,
happy face, you are smiling."

"Yes, I am very happy just now," replied Lisa simply.

Lavretsky would have liked to seize both her hands, and press them
warmly.

"Lisa, Lisa!" cried Marya Dmitrievna, "do come here, and look what a
fine carp I have caught."

"In a minute, maman," replied Lisa, and went towards her, but Lavretsky
remained sitting on his willow. "I talk to her just as if life were not
over for me," he thought. As she went away, Lisa hung her hat on a twig;
with strange, almost tender emotion, Lavretsky looked at the hat, and
its long rather crumpled ribbons. Lisa soon came back to him, and again
took her stand on the platform.

"What makes you think Vladimir Nikolaitch has no heart?" she asked a few
minutes late