imperturbably-crafty, beautiful, and detested features. Old Anton
noticed that his master was not himself; after heaving several sighs
outside the door, and several more on the threshold, he made up his mind
to approach him, and advised him to drink something warm. Lavretzky
shouted at him, ordered him to leave the room, but afterward begged his
pardon; but this caused Anton to grow still more disconsolate.
Lavretzky could not sit in the drawing-room; he felt as though his
great-grandfather Andrei were gazing scornfully from the canvas at his
puny descendant.--"Ekh, look out for thyself! thou art sailing in shoal
water!" his lips, pursed up on one side, seemed to be saying. "Can it
be,"--he thought,--"that I shall not be able to conquer myself,--that I
shall give in to this--nonsense?" (The severely-wounded in war always
call their wounds "nonsense." If a man could not deceive himself,--he
could not live on the earth.) "Am I really a miserable little boy? Well,
yes: I have beheld close by, I have almost held in my hand, the
possibility of happiness for my whole life--it has suddenly vanished; and
in a lottery, if you turn the wheel just a little further, a poor man
might become a rich one. If it was not to be, it was not to be,--and
that's the end of the matter. I'll set to work, with clenched teeth, and
I will command myself to hold my tongue; luckily, it is not the first
time I have had to take myself in hand. And why did I run away, why am I
sitting here, with my head thrust into a bush, like an ostrich? To be
afraid to look catastrophe in the face--is nonsense!--Anton!"--he called
loudly,--"order the tarantas to be harnessed up immediately. Yes,"--he
meditated once more,--"I must command myself to hold my tongue, I must
keep a tight rein on myself."...

With such arguments did Lavretzky strive to alleviate his grief; but it
was great and powerful; and even Apraxyeya, who had outlived not so much
her mind as every feeling, even Apraxyeya shook her head, and
sorrowfully followed him with her eyes, when he seated himself in the
tarantas, in order to drive to the town. The horses galloped off; he sat
motionless and upright, and stared impassively ahead along the road.

XLII

Liza had written to Lavretzky on the day before, that he was to come to
their house in the evening; but he first went up to his own quarters. He
did not find either his wife or his daughter at home; from th