ry slowly, made continual
mistakes, squeezed up his eyes, and mopped his face with his
handkerchief. Panshine assumed an air of melancholy, and expressed
himself tersely, sadly, and significantly--altogether after the
fashion of an artist who has not yet had any opportunity of showing
off--but in spite of the entreaties of Madame Belenitsine, who
coquetted with him to a great extent he would not consent to sing his
romance. Lavretsky's presence embarrassed him.

Lavretsky himself spoke little, but the peculiar expression his face
wore struck Liza as soon as he entered the room. She immediately felt
that he had something to communicate to her; but, without knowing
herself why, she was afraid of asking him any questions. At last,
as she was passing into the next room to make the tea, she almost
unconsciously looked towards him. He immediately followed her.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked, putting the teapot on the
_samovar_.[A]

[Footnote A: Urn.]

"You have remarked something, then?" he said.

"You are different to-day from what I have seen you before."

Lavretsky bent over the table.

"I wanted," he began, "to tell you a piece of news, but just now it is
impossible. But read the part of this _feuilleton_ which is marked in
pencil," he added, giving her the copy of the newspaper he had
brought with him. "Please keep the secret; I will come back to-morrow
morning."

Liza was thoroughly amazed. At that moment Panshine appeared in the
doorway. She put the newspaper in her pocket.

"Have you read Obermann,[A] Lizaveta Mikhailovna?" asked Panshine with
a thoughtful air.

[Footnote A: The sentimental romance of that name, written by E.
Pivert de Senancour.]

Liza replied vaguely as she passed out of the room, and then went
up-stairs. Lavretsky returned into the drawing room and approached the
card table. Marfa Timofeevna flushed, and with her cap-strings untied,
began to complain to him of her partner Gedeonovsky, who, according
to her, had not yet learnt his steps. "Card-playing," she said,
"is evidently a very different thing from gossiping." Meanwhile
Gedeonovsky never left off blinking and mopping himself with his
handkerchief.

Presently Liza returned to the drawing-room and sat down in a corner.
Lavretsky looked at her and she at him, and each experienced a painful
sensation. He could read perplexity on her face, and a kind of secret
reproach. Much as he wished it, he could not get a talk with