d up in the pursuit of fruitless science, while
we have been concealing the purest of hopes from the knowledge of
those who are near and dear to us, and stifling the noble utterance of
such sentiments as are ridiculed by a mocking spirit.

We have scarcely tasted of the cup of enjoyment, but for all that we
have not husbanded our youthful strength. While we were always in
dread of satiety, we have contrived to drain each joy of its best
virtues.

No dreams of poetry, no creations of art, touch our hearts with a
sweet rapture. We stingily hoard up within our breasts the last
remnants of feeling--a treasure concealed by avarice, and which
remains utterly unprofitable.

We love and we hate capriciously, sacrificing nothing either to our
animosity or to our affection, a certain secret coldness possessing
our souls, even while a fire is raging in our veins.

The sumptuous pleasures of our ancestors weary us, as well as their
simple, childish diversions. Without enjoying happiness, without
reaping glory, we hasten onwards to the grave, casting naught but
unlucky glances behind us.

A saturnine crowd, soon to be forgotten, we silently pass away from
the world and leave no trace behind, without having handed down to the
ages to come a single work of genius, or even a solitary thought laden
with meaning.

And our descendants, regarding our memory with the severity of
citizens called to sit in judgment on an affair concerning the state,
will allude to us with the scathing irony of a ruined son, when he
speaks of the father who has squandered away his patrimony.

XXXII.

Liza had not uttered a single word during the dispute between
Lavretsky and Panshine, but she had followed it attentively, and had
been on Lavretsky's side throughout. She cared very little about
politics; but she was repelled by the self-sufficient tone of the
worldly official, who had never shown himself in that light before,
and his contempt for Russia offended her. It had never occurred to
Liza to imagine that she was a patriot. But she was thoroughly at her
ease with the Russian people. The Russian turn of mind pleased her.
She would chat for hours, without thinking anything of it, with the
chief of the village on her mother's estate, when he happened to come
into town, and talk with him as if he were her equal, without any
signs of seigneurial condescension. All this Lavretsky knew well. For
his own part, he never would have cared to reply