uite yourself."

Maria Dmitrievna assumed a dignified and somewhat offended expression.

"If that's the way you take it," she thought, "it's a matter of
perfect indifference to me; it's clear that every thing slides off
you like water off a goose. Any one else would have withered up with
misery, but you've grown fat on it."

Maria Dmitrievna did not stand upon ceremony when she was only
thinking to herself. When she spoke aloud she was more choice in her
expressions.

And in reality Lavretsky did not look like a victim of destiny. His
rosy-cheeked, thoroughly Russian face, with its large white forehead,
somewhat thick nose, and long straight lips, seemed to speak of robust
health and enduring vigor of constitution. He was powerfully built,
and his light hair twined in curls, like a boy's, about his head. Only
in his eyes, which were blue, rather prominent, and a little wanting
in mobility, an expression might be remarked which it would be
difficult to define. It might have been melancholy, or it might have
been fatigue; and the ring of his voice seemed somewhat monotonous.

All this time Panshine was supporting the burden of the conversation.
He brought it round to the advantages of sugar making, about which he
had lately read two French pamphlets; their contents he now proceeded
to disclose, speaking with an air of great modesty, but without saying
a single word about the sources of his information.

"Why, there's Fedia!" suddenly exclaimed the voice of Marfa Timofeevna
in the next room, the door of which had been left half open.
"Actually, Fedia!" And the old lady hastily entered the room.
Lavretsky hadn't had time to rise from his chair before she had caught
him in her arms. "Let me have a look at you," she exclaimed, holding
him at a little distance from her. "Oh, how well you are looking!
You've grown a little older, but you haven't altered a bit for the
worse, that's a fact. But what makes you kiss my hand. Kiss my face,
if you please, unless you don't like the look of my wrinkled cheeks. I
dare say you never asked after me, or whether your aunt was alive or
no. And yet it was my hands received you when you first saw the light,
you good-for-nothing fellow! Ah, well, it's all one. But it was a good
idea of yours to come here. I say, my dear," she suddenly exclaimed,
turning to Maria Dmitrievna, "have you offered him any refreshment?"

"I don't want any thing," hastily said Lavretsky.

"Well, at all events,