o along, and look at the fields....'

And Lezhnyov betook himself to the apartments of Alexandra Pavlovna.
He found her in the drawing-room. She welcomed him effusively. She was
always pleased when he came; but her face still looked sorrowful. She
was uneasy about Rudin's visit the day before.

'You have seen my brother?' she asked Lezhnyov. 'How is he to-day?'

'All right, he has gone to the fields.'

Alexandra Favlovna did not speak for a minute.

'Tell me, please,' she began, gazing earnestly at the hem of her
pocket-handkerchief, 'don't you know why...'

'Rudin came here?' put in Lezhnyov. 'I know, he came to say good-bye.'

Alexandra Pavlovna lifted up her head.

'What, to say good-bye!'

'Yes. Haven't you heard? He is leaving Darya Mihailovna's.'

'He is leaving?'

'For ever; at least he says so.'

'But pray, how is one to explain it, after all?...'

'Oh, that's a different matter! To explain it is impossible, but it is
so. Something must have happened with them. He pulled the string too
tight--and it has snapped.'

'Mihailo Mihailitch!' began Alexandra Pavlovna, 'I don't understand; you
are laughing at me, I think....'

'No indeed! I tell you he is going away, and he even let his friends
know by letter. It's just as well, I daresay, from one point of view;
but his departure has prevented one surprising enterprise from being
carried out that I had begun to talk to your brother about.'

'What do you mean? What enterprise?'

'Why, I proposed to your brother that we should go on our travels, to
distract his mind, and take you with us. To look after you especially I
would take on myself....'

'That's capital!' cried Alexandra Pavlovna. 'I can fancy how you would
look after me. Why, you would let me die of hunger.'

'You say so, Alexandra Pavlovna, because you don't know me. You think I
am a perfect blockhead, a log; but do you know I am capable of melting
like sugar, of spending whole days on my knees?'

'I should like to see that, I must say!'

Lezhnyov suddenly got up. 'Well, marry me, Alexandra Pavlovna, and you
will see all that'

Alexandra Pavlovna blushed up to her ears.

'What did you say, Mihailo Mihailitch?' she murmured in confusion.

'I said what it has been for ever so long,' answered Lezhnyov, 'on the
tip of my tongue to say a thousand times over. I have brought it out at
last, and you must act as you think best. But I will go away now, so as
not to be in your way. If you wil