en animation, and threw herself on Marfa Timofeevna's neck.--"Dear
aunty, be my friend, help me; do not be angry, understand me."

"Why, what is this, what is this, my mother? Don't frighten me, please; I
shall scream in another minute; don't look at me like that: tell me
quickly what thou meanest?"

"I ... I want ..." Liza hid her face in Marfa Timofeevna's bosom.... "I
want to enter a convent,"--she said, in a dull tone.

The old woman fairly leaped on the bed.

"Cross thyself, my mother, Lizotchka; come to thy senses: God be with
thee, what dost thou mean?"--she stammered at last: "lie down, my
darling, sleep a little: this comes from lack of sleep, my dear."

Liza raised her head, her cheeks were burning.

"No, aunty,"--she articulated, "do not speak like that. I have made up my
mind, I have prayed, I have asked counsel of God; all is ended, my life
with you is ended. Such a lesson is not in vain; and it is not the first
time I have thought of this. Happiness was not suited to me; even when I
cherished hopes of happiness, my heart was always heavy. I know
everything, my own sins and the sins of others, and how papa acquired his
wealth; I know everything. All that must be atoned for by prayer--atoned
for by prayer. I am sorry for all of you--I am sorry for mamma, for
Lyenotchka; but there is no help for it; I feel that I cannot live here;
I have already taken leave of everything, I have made my reverence to
everything in the house for the last time; something is calling me hence;
I am weary; I want to shut myself up forever. Do not hold me back, do not
dissuade me; help me, or I will go away alone."

Marfa Timofeevna listened in terror to her niece.

"She is ill, she is raving,"--she thought:--"I must send for a doctor;
but for which? Gedeonovsky was praising some one the other day; he's
always lying,--but, perhaps, he told the truth that time." But when she
became convinced that Liza was not ill, and was not raving, when to all
her objections Liza steadfastly made one and the same reply, Marfa
Timofeevna became seriously frightened and grieved.--"But thou dost not
know, my darling,"--she began to try to prevail upon her;--"what sort of
a life they lead in convents! Why, my own one, they will feed thee with
green hemp-oil; they will put on thee coarse, awfully coarse linen; they
will make thee go about cold; thou canst not endure all that, Lizotchka.
All that is the traces of Agafya in thee; it was she who led