h reasonings Lavretsky tried to ease his pain; but it was deep
and intense; and even Apraxya who had outlived all emotion as well as
intelligence shook her head and followed him mournfully with her eyes,
as he took his seat in the coach to drive to the town. The horses
galloped away; he sat upright and motionless, and looked fixedly at the
road before him.

Chapter XLII

Lisa had written to Lavretsky the day before, to tell him to come in the
evening; but he first went home to his lodgings. He found neither his
wife nor his daughter at home; from the servants he learned that she
had gone with the child to the Kalitins'. This information astounded and
maddened him. "Varvara Pavlovna has made up her mind not to let me live
at all, it seems," he thought with a passion of hatred in his heart.
He began to walk up and down, and his hands and feet were constantly
knocking up against child's toys, books and feminine belongings; he
called Justine and told her to clear away all this "litter." "Oui,
monsieur," she said with a grimace, and began to set the room in order,
stooping gracefully, and letting Lavretsky feel in every movement that
she regarded him as an unpolished bear.

He looked with aversion at her faded, but still "piquante," ironical,
Parisian face, at her white elbow-sleeves, her silk apron, and little
light cap. He sent her away at last, and after long hesitation
(as Varvara Pavlovna still did not return) he decided to go to the
Kalitins'--not to see Marya Dmitrievna (he would not for anything in the
world have gone into that drawing-room, the room where his wife
was), but to go up to Marfa Timofyevna's. He remembered that the back
staircase from the servants' entrance led straight to her apartment.
He acted on this plan; fortune favoured him; he met Shurotchka in the
court-yard; she conducted him up to Marfa Timofyevna's. He found her,
contrary to her usual habit, alone; she was sitting without a cap in
a corner, bent, and her arms crossed over her breast. The old lady was
much upset on seeing Lavretsky, she got up quickly and began to move to
and fro in the room as if she were looking for her cap.

"Ah, it's you," she began, fidgeting about and avoiding meeting his
eyes, "well, how do you do? Well, well, what's to be done! Where were
you yesterday? Well, she has come, so there, there! Well, it must... one
way or another."

Lavretsky dropped into a chair.

"Well, sit down, sit down," the old lady went