ds apart. Panshin came to her assistance,
and entered into conversation with Lavretzky. Marya Dmitrievna
recovered her composure, leaned back in her chair, and only interjected a
word from time to time; but, all the while, she gazed so compassionately
at her visitor, she sighed so significantly, and shook her head so
mournfully, that the latter, at last, could endure it no longer, and
asked her, quite sharply: was she well?

"Thank God, yes,"--replied Marya Dmitrievna,--"why?"

"Because it seemed to me that you were not quite yourself."

Marya Dmitrievna assumed a dignified and somewhat offended aspect.--"If
that's the way you take it,"--she said to herself,--"I don't care in the
least; evidently, my good man, nothing affects thee any more than water
does a goose; any one else would have pined away with grief, but it
swells thee up more than ever." Marya Dmitrievna did not stand on
ceremony with herself; she expressed herself more elegantly aloud.

As a matter of fact, Lavretzky did not resemble a victim of fate. His
rosy-cheeked, purely-Russian face, with its large, white brow, rather
thick nose, and broad, regular lips, fairly overflowed with native
health, with strong, durable force. He was magnificently built,--and his
blond hair curled all over his head, like a young man's. Only in his
eyes, which were blue and prominent and fixed, was there to be discerned
something which was not revery, nor yet weariness, and his voice sounded
rather too even.

In the meantime, Panshin had continued to keep up the conversation. He
turned it on the profits of sugar-refining, concerning which two French
pamphlets had recently made their appearance, and with calm modesty
undertook to set forth their contents, but without saying one word about
them.

"Why, here's Fedya!" suddenly rang out Marfa Timofeevna's voice in the
adjoining room, behind the half-closed door:--"Actually, Fedya!" And the
old woman briskly entered the room. Before Lavretzky could rise from his
chair, she clasped him in her embrace.--"Come, show thyself, show
thyself,"--she said, moving back from his face.--"Eh! What a splendid
fellow thou art! Thou hast grown older, but hast not grown in the least
less comely, really! But why art thou kissing my hands,--kiss me myself,
if my wrinkled cheeks are not repulsive to thee. Can it be, that thou
didst not ask after me: 'Well, tell me, is aunty alive?' Why, thou wert
born into my arms, thou rogue! Well, never mind th