nd me to proceed?"

"Proceed, batiushka,"--replied Marya Dmitrievna.

He began to vest himself; the chanter obsequiously asked for a live coal;
the incense began to diffuse its fragrance. The maids and lackeys emerged
from the anteroom and halted in a dense throng close to the door. Roska,
who never came down-stairs, suddenly made his appearance in the
dining-room: they began to drive him out, and he became confused, turned
around and sat down; a footman picked him up and carried him away. The
Vigil service began. Lavretzky pressed himself into a corner; his
sensations were strange, almost melancholy; he himself was not able
clearly to make out what he felt. Marya Dmitrievna stood in front of
them all, before an arm-chair; she crossed herself with enervated
carelessness, in regular lordly fashion,--now glancing around her, again
suddenly casting her eyes upward: she was bored. Marfa Timofeevna
seemed troubled; Nastasya Karpovna kept prostrating herself, and rising
with a sort of modest, soft rustle; Liza took up her stand, and never
stirred from her place, never moved; from the concentrated expression of
her countenance, it was possible to divine that she was praying
assiduously and fervently. When she kissed the cross, at the end of the
service, she also kissed the priest's large, red hand. Marya Dmitrievna
invited him to drink tea; he took off his stole, assumed a rather secular
air, and passed into the drawing-room with the ladies. A not over
animated conversation began. The priest drank four cups of tea,
incessantly mopping his bald spot with his handkerchief, and narrated,
among other things, that merchant Avoshnikoff had contributed seven
hundred rubles to gild the "cupola" of the church, and he also imparted a
sure cure for freckles. Lavretzky tried to seat himself beside Liza, but
she maintained a severe, almost harsh demeanour, and never once glanced
at him; she appeared to be deliberately refraining from noticing him; a
certain cold, dignified rapture had descended upon her. For some reason
or other, Lavretzky felt inclined to smile uninterruptedly, and say
something amusing; but there was confusion in his heart, and he went away
at last, secretly perplexed.... He felt that there was something in Liza
into which he could not penetrate.

On another occasion, Lavretzky, as he sat in the drawing-room, and
listened to the insinuating but heavy chatter of Gedeonovsky, suddenly
turned round, without himself knowin