er
head. "I have not forgotten my fault; I should not be surprised to learn
that you were even delighted at the news of my death,"--she added gently,
pointing slightly with her hand at the copy of the newspaper which lay on
the table, forgotten by Lavretzky.

Feodor Ivanitch shuddered: the feuilleton was marked with a pencil.
Varvara Pavlovna gazed at him with still greater humility. She was very
pretty at that moment. Her grey Paris gown gracefully clothed her willowy
form, which was almost that of a girl of seventeen; her slender, delicate
neck encircled with a white collar, her bosom which rose and fell evenly,
her arms devoid of bracelets and rings,--her whole figure, from her
shining hair to the tip of her barely revealed little boot, was so
elegant....

Lavretzky swept an angry glance over her, came near exclaiming: "Brava!"
came near smiting her in the temple with his fist--and left the room. An
hour later, he had already set out for Vasilievskoe, and two hours
later, Varvara Pavlovna gave orders that the best carriage in town
should be engaged, donned a simple straw hat with a black veil, and a
modest mantle, entrusted Ada to Justine, and set out for the Kalitins:
from the inquiries instituted by her servant she had learned that her
husband was in the habit of going to them every day.

XXXVIII

The day of the arrival of Lavretzky's wife in town of O * * *, a
cheerless day for him, was also a painful day for Liza. She had not
succeeded in going down-stairs and bidding her mother "good morning,"
before the trampling of a horse's hoofs resounded under the window, and
with secret terror she beheld Panshin riding into the yard: "He has
presented himself thus early for a definitive explanation,"--she
thought--and she was not mistaken; after spending a while in the
drawing-room, he suggested that she should go with him into the garden,
and demanded her decision as to his fate. Liza summoned up her courage,
and informed him that she could not be his wife. He listened to her to
the end, as he stood with his side toward her, and his hat pulled down on
his brows; courteously, but in an altered tone, he asked her: was that
her last word, and had he, in any way, given her cause for such a change
in her ideas? then he pressed his hand to his eyes, sighed briefly and
abruptly, and removed his hand from his face.

"I have not wished to follow the beaten path,"--he said, in a dull
v