essed Lisa's hand and said, "I think we
are friends now, aren't we?" She nodded, he stopped his horse, and
the coach rolled away, lightly swaying and oscillating up and down;
Lavretsky turned homeward at a walking pace. The witchery of the summer
night enfolded him; all around him seemed suddenly so strange--and at
the same time so long known; so sweetly familiar. Everywhere near and
afar--and one could see in to the far distance, though the eye could
not make out clearly much of what was seen--all was at peace; youthful,
blossoming life seemed expressed in this deep peace. Lavretsky's horse
stepped out bravely, swaying evenly to right and left; its great black
shadow moved along beside it. There was something strangely sweet in the
tramp of its hoofs, a strange charm in the ringing cry of the quails.
The stars were lost in a bright mist; the moon, not yet at the full,
shone with steady brilliance; its light was shot in an azure stream over
the sky, and fell in patches of smoky gold on the thin clouds as they
drifted near. The freshness of the air drew a slight moisture into the
eyes, sweetly folded all the limbs, and flowed freely into the lungs.
Lavretsky rejoiced in it, and was glad at his own rejoicing. "Come, we
are still alive," he thought; "we have not been altogether destroyed
by"--he did not say--by whom or by what. Then he fell to thinking of
Lisa, that she could hardly love Panshin, that if he had met her under
different circumstances--God knows what might have come of it; that
he undertook Lemm though Lisa had no words of "her own:" but that, he
thought, was not true; she had words of her own. "Don't speak light of
that," came back to Lavretsky's mind. He rode a long way with his head
bent in thought, then drawing himself up, he slowly repeated aloud:

"And I have burnt all I adored,
And now I adore all that I burnt."

Then he gave his horse a switch with the whip, and galloped all the way
home.

Dismounting from his horse, he looked round for the last time with an
involuntary smile of gratitude. Night, still, kindly night stretched
over hills and valleys; from afar, out of its fragrant depths--God
knows whence--whether from the heavens or the earth--rose a soft, gentle
warmth. Lavretsky sent a last greeting to Lisa, and ran up the steps.

The next day passed rather dully. Rain was falling from early morning;
Lemm wore a scowl, and kept more and more tightly compressing his lips,
as though he had