h condescension; but in her
secret soul she was pleased neither with Lavretzky nor with Varvara
Pavlovna, nor with the whole scene which she had planned. There had
turned out to be very little sentimentality; Varvara Pavlovna, in her
opinion, should have flung herself at her husband's feet.

"How was it that you did not understand me?"--she commented:--"why, I
told you: 'fall at his feet.'"

"It was better thus, dear aunty; do not disturb yourself--everything is
all right,"--insisted Varvara Pavlovna.

"Well, and he is as cold as ice,"--remarked Marya Dmitrievna. "Even if
you did not weep, why, I fairly overflowed before him. He means to shut
you up in Lavriki. The idea,--and you cannot even come to see me! All
men are unfeeling,"--she said, in conclusion, and shook her head
significantly.

"On the other hand, women know how to value kindness and
magnanimity,"--said Varvara Pavlovna, and softly dropping on her knees
before Marya Dmitrievna, she embraced the latter's corpulent form with
her arms, and pressed her face against her. That face wore a quiet smile,
but Marya Dmitrievna's tears were flowing again.

And Lavretzky went home, locked himself up in his valet's room, flung
himself on the divan, and lay there until the morning.

XLIV

The next day was Sunday. The chiming of the bells for the early Liturgy
did not awaken Lavretzky--he had not closed an eye all night long--but it
did remind him of another Sunday, when, at the wish of Liza, he had gone
to church. He hastily rose; a certain secret voice told him that he would
see her there again to-day. He noiselessly quitted the house, ordered
Varvara Pavlovna to be informed that he would return to dinner, and with
great strides wended his way thither, whither the monotonously-mournful
chiming summoned him. He arrived early: there was hardly any one in the
church; a chanter in the choir was reading the Hours; his voice,
occasionally broken by a cough, boomed on in measured cadence, now rising,
now falling. Lavretzky took up his stand not far from the entrance. The
prayerfully inclined arrived one by one, paused, crossed themselves, bowed
on all sides; their footsteps resounded in the emptiness and silence,
distinctly re-echoing from the arches overhead. A decrepit little old
woman, in an ancient hooded cloak, knelt down beside Lavretzky, and began
to pray assiduously; her yellow, toothless, wrinkled face expressed
intense