an had been sitting in his corner,
squeezing up his eyes and shooting out his lips, while he listened
with the curiosity of a child to all that was being said. When he
left, it was that he might hasten to spread through the town the news
of the recent arrival.

Here is a picture of what was taking place at eleven o'clock that same
evening in the Kalitines' house. Down stairs, on the threshold of the
drawing-room, Panshine was taking leave of Liza, and saying, as he
held her hand in his:--

"You know who it is that attracts me here; you know why I am always
coming to your house. Of what use are words when all is so clear?"

Liza did not say a word in reply--she did not ever smile. Slightly
arching her eyebrows, and growing rather red, she kept her eyes fixed
on the ground, but did not withdraw her hand. Up stairs, in Marfa
Timofeevna's room, the light of the lamp, which hung in the corner
before the age-embrowned sacred pictures, fell on Lavretsky, as he sat
in an arm-chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his face hidden in
his hands. In front of him stood the old lady, who from time to time
silently passed her hand over his hair. He spent more than an hour
with her after taking leave of the mistress of the house, he scarcely
saying a word to his kind old friend, and she not asking him any
questions. And why should he have spoken? what could she have asked?
She understood all so well, she so fully sympathized with all the
feelings which filled his heart.

VIII.

Fedor Ivanovich Lavretsky (we must ask our reader's permission to
break off the thread of the story for a time) sprang from a noble
family of long descent. The founder of the race migrated from Prussia
during the reign of Basil the Blind,[A] and was favored with a grant
of two hundred _chetverts_[B] of land in the district of Biejetsk.
Many of his descendants filled various official positions, and were
appointed to governorships in distant places, under princes and
influential personages, but none of them obtained any great amount of
property, or arrived at a higher dignity, than that of inspector of
the Czar's table.

[Footnote A: In the fifteenth century.]

[Footnote B: An old measure of land, variously estimated at from two
to six acres.]

The richest and most influential of all the Lavretskys was Fedor
Ivanovich's paternal great-grandfather Andrei, a man who was harsh,
insolent, shrewd, and crafty. Even up to the present day men have
nev