alked by the side of the young people along the alleys. The
lime-trees looked older than before, having grown a little taller
during the last eight years, and casting a denser shade. All the
underwood, also, had grown higher, and the raspberry-bushes had spread
vigorously, and the hazel copse was thickly tangled. From every side
exhaled a fresh odor from the forest and the wood, from the grass and
the lilacs.

"What a capital place for a game at Puss in the Corner!" suddenly
cried Lenochka, as they entered upon a small grassy lawn surrounded by
lime-trees. "There are just five of us."

"But have you forgotten Fedor Ivanovich?" asked her brother; "or is it
yourself you have not counted?"

Lenochka blushed a little.

"But would Fedor Ivanovich like--at his age--" she began stammering.

"Please play away," hastily interposed Lavretsky; "don't pay any
attention to me. I shall feel more comfortable if I know I am not
boring you. And there is no necessity for your finding me something to
do. We old people have a resource which you don't know yet, and which
is better than any amusement--recollection."

The young people listened to Lavretsky with respectful, though
slightly humorous politeness, just as if they were listening to a
teacher who was reading them a lesson--then they all suddenly left
him, and ran off to the lawn. One of them stood in the middle, the
others occupied the four corners by the trees, and the game began.

But Lavretsky returned to the house, went into the dining-room,
approached the piano, and touched one of the notes. It responded with
a faint but clear sound, and a shudder thrilled his heart within him.
With that note began the inspired melody, by means of which, on that
most happy night long ago, Lemm, the dead Lemm, had thrown him into
such raptures. Then Lavretsky passed into the drawing-room, and did
not leave it for a long time.

In that room, in which he had seen Liza so often, her image floated
more distinctly before him; the traces of her presence seemed to make
themselves felt around him there. But his sorrow for her loss became
painful and crushing; it bore with it none of the tranquillity which
death inspires. Liza was still living somewhere, far away and lost to
sight. He thought of her as he had known her in actual life; he could
not recognize the girl he used to love in that pale, dim, ghostly
form, half-hidden in a nun's dark robe, and surrounded by waving
clouds of incense.