heard during the pauses in the eloquent
harangue; the first stars began to kindle in the rose-stained sky
above the motionless tops of the lime trees. Presently Lavretsky rose
and began to reply to Panshine. A warm dispute soon commenced.

Lavretsky spoke in defence of the youth of Russia, and of the capacity
of the country to suffice for itself. He surrendered himself and his
contemporaries, but he stood up for the new generation, and their
wishes and convictions. Panshine replied incisively and irritably,
declared that clever people were bound to reform every thing, and
at length was carried away to such an extent that, forgetting his
position as a chamberlain, and his proper line of action as a member
of the civil service, he called Lavretsky a retrogade conservative,
and alluded--very distantly it is true--to his false position in
society. Lavretsky did not lose his temper, nor did he raise
his voice; he remembered that Mikhalevich also had called him a
retrograde, and, at the same time a disciple of Voltaire; but he
calmly beat Panshine on every point. He proved the impracticability
of reforming by sudden bounds, and of introducing changes haughtily
schemed on the heights of official self-complacency--changes which
were not justified by any intimate acquaintance with the country, nor
by a living faith in any ideal, not even in one of negation, and in
illustration of this he adduced his own education. He demanded
before every thing else that the true spirit of the nation should be
recognized, and that it should be looked up to with that humility
without which no courage is possible, not even that wherewith to
oppose falsehood. Finally he did not attempt to make any defence
against what he considered a deserved reproach, that of giving way to
a wasteful and inconsiderate expenditure of both time and strength.

"All that is very fine!" at last exclaimed Panshine with vexation.
"But here are you, just returned to Russia; what do you intend to do?"

"To cultivate the soil," replied Lavretsky; "and to cultivate it as
well as possible."

"No doubt that is very praiseworthy," answered Panshine, "and I hear
you have already had great success in that line; but you must admit
that every one is not fitted for such an occupation--"

"_Une nature poetique_," said Maria Dmitrievna, "certainly cannot
go cultivating the soil--_et puis_, it is your vocation, Vladimir
Nikolaevich, to do every thing _en grand_."

This was too m