ck to the drawing-room and drew near the
card-table. Marfa Timofyevna, flinging back the ribbons of her cap and
flushing with annoyance, began to complain of her partner, Gedeonovsky,
who in her words, could not play a bit.

"Car-playing, you see," she said, "is not so easy as talking scandal."

The latter continued to blink and wipe his face. Lisa came into the
drawing-room and sat down in a corner; Lavretsky looked at her, she
looked at him, and both the felt the position insufferable. He read
perplexity and a kind of secret reproachfulness in her face. He could
not talk to her as he would have liked to do; to remain in the same room
with her, a guest among other guests, was too painful; he decided to go
away. As he took leave of her, he managed to repeat that he would come
to-morrow, and added that he trusted in her friendship.

"Come," she answered with the same perplexity on her face.

Panshin brightened up at Lavretsky's departure: he began to give advice
to Gedeonovsky, paid ironical attentions to Madame Byelenitsin, and at
last sang his song. But with Lisa he still spoke and looked as before,
impressively and rather mournfully.

Again Lavretsky did not sleep all night. He was not sad, he was not
agitated, he was quite clam; but he could not sleep. He did not even
remember the past; he simply looked at his life; his heart beat slowly
and evenly; the hours glided by; he did not even think of sleep. Only at
times the thought flashed through his brain: "But it is not true, it
is all nonsense," and he stood still, bowed his head and again began to
ponder on the life before him.

Chapter XXIX

Marya Dmitrievna did not give Lavretsky an over-cordial welcome when he
made his appearance the following day. "Upon my word, he's always in
and out," she thought. She did not much care for him, and Panshin, under
whose influence she was, had been very artful and disparaging in his
praises of him the evening before. And as she did not regard him as
a visitor, and did not consider it necessary to entertain a relation,
almost one of the family, it came to pass that in less than half-an
hour's time he found himself walking in an avenue in the grounds with
Lisa. Lenotchka and Shurotchka were running about a few paces from them
in the flower-garden.

Lisa was as calm as usual but more than usually pale. She took out of
her pocket and held out to Lavretsky the sheet of the newspaper folded
up small.

"That is terrible