cription of her cares and anxieties and
maternal sentiments. Lavretsky listened in silence, turning his hat in
his hands. Finally he rose, took his leave, and went upstairs to say
good-bye to Marfa Timofyevna.

"Tell me, please," he began; "Marya Dmitrievna has just been talking to
me about this--what's his name?--Panshin? What sort of man is he?"

"What a chatterbox she is, Lord save us! She told you, I suppose, as a
secret that he has turned up as a suitor, and so far, there's nothing to
tell, thank God! But already she's gossipping about him."

"Why thank God?"

"Because I don't like the fine young gentleman; and so what is there to
be glad of in it?

"Well, shall we see you again soon?" the old lady asked, as he rose to
depart.

"Very likely, aunt; it's not so far, you know."

"Well, go, then, and God be with you. And Lisa's not going to marry
Panshin; don't you trouble yourself--that's not the sort of husband she
deserves."

* * * * *

Lavretsky lived alone at Vassilyevskoe, and often rode into O------ to
see his cousins. He saw a good deal of Lisa's music-master, an old
German named Christopher Theodor Lemm, and, finding much in common with
him, invited him to stay for a few days.

"Maestro," said Lavretsky one morning at breakfast, "you will soon have
to compose a triumphal cantata."

"On what occasion?"

"On the nuptials of M. Panshin and Lisa. It seems to me things are in a
fair way with them already."

"That will never be," cried Lemm.

"Why?"

"Because it is impossible."

"What, then, do you find amiss with the match?"

"Everything is amiss, everything. At the age of nineteen Lisavetta is a
girl of high principles, serious, of lofty feelings, and he--he is a
dilettante, in a word."

"But suppose she loves him?"

"No, she does not love him; that is to say, she is very pure in heart,
and does not know herself what it means--love. Mme. de Kalitin tells her
that he is a fine young man, and she obeys because she is quite a child.
She can only love what is beautiful, and he is not--that is, his soul is
not beautiful...."

It sometimes happens that two people who are acquainted but not on
intimate terms all of a sudden grow more intimate in a few minutes. This
was exactly what came to pass with Lavretsky and Lisa. "So he is like
that," was her thought as she turned a friendly glance at him. "So you
are like that," he, too, was thinking. And thus he was not v