uch even for Panshine, who grew confused, and changed
the conversation. He tried to turn it on the beauty of the starry
heavens, on Schubert's music, but somehow his efforts did not prove
successful. He ended by offering to play at piquet with Maria
Dmitrievna. "What! on such an evening as this?" she feebly objected;
but then she ordered the cards to be brought.

Panshine noisily tore open a new pack; and Liza and Lavretsky, as if
by mutual consent, both rose from their seats and placed themselves
near Marfa Timofeevna. They both suddenly experienced a great feeling
of happiness, mingled with a sense of mutual dread, which made them
glad of the presence of a third person; at the same time, they both
felt that the uneasiness from which they had suffered during the last
few days had disappeared, and would return no more.

The old lady stealthily tapped Lavretsky on the cheek, screwed up her
eyes with an air of pleasant malice, and shook her head repeatedly,
saying in a whisper, "You've done for the genius--thanks!" Then all
became still in the room. Nothing was to be heard but the faint
crackling of the wax lights, and sometimes the fall of a hand on the
table, or an exclamation on the score of points, and the song of the
nightingale which, powerful, almost insolently loud, flowed in a great
wave through the window, together with the dewy freshness of the
night.

* * * * *

NOTE.--The following is a tolerably literal translation of the poem of
Lermontof's to which allusion is made on p. 208, and which created no
slight sensation when it first appeared, in the year 1838:--

A THOUGHT.

Sorrowfully do I look upon the present generation! Its future seems
either gloomy or meaningless, and meanwhile, whether under the burden
of knowledge or of doubt, it grows old in idleness.

When scarcely out of the cradle, we reap the rich inheritance of the
errors of our fathers, and the results of their tardy thoughts. Life
soon grows wearisome for us, like a banquet at a stranger's festival,
like a level road leading nowhere.

In the commencement of our career, we fall away without a struggle,
shamefully careless about right and wrong, shamefully timid in the
face of danger.

So does a withered fruit which has prematurely ripened--attractive
neither to the eye nor to the palate--hang like an alien orphan among
blossoms; and the hour of their beauty is that of its fall.

Our intellect has drie