Lavretsky was not a young man; he could not long delude himself as to the nature of the feeling inspired in him by Lisa; he was brought on that day to the final conviction that he loved her. This conviction did not give him ay great pleasure. “Have I really nothing better to do,” he thought, “at thirty-five than to put my soul into a woman’s keeping again? But Lisa is not like her; she would not demand degrading sacrifices from me: she would not tempt me away from my duties; she would herself incite me to hard honest work, and we would walk hand in hand towards a noble aim. Yes,” he concluded his reflections, “that’s all very fine, but the worst of it is that she does not in the least wish to walk hand in hand with me. She meant it when she said that I frightened her. But she doesn’t love Panshin either — a poor consolation!”

Lavretsky went back to Vassilyevskoe, but he could not get through four days there — so dull it seemed to him. He was also in agonies of suspense; the news announced by M. Jules required confirmation, and he had received no letters of any kind. He returned to the town and spent an evening at the Kalitins’. He could easily see that Marya Dmitrievna had to been set against him; but he succeeded in softening her a little, by losing fifteen roubles to her at picquet, and he spent nearly half an hour almost alone with Lisa in spite of the fact that her mother had advised her the previous evening not to be too intimate with a man qui a un si grand ridicule. He found a change in her; she had become, as it were, more thoughtful. She reproached him for his absence and asked him would he not go on the morrow to mass? (The next day was Sunday.)

“Do go,” she said before he had time to answer, “we will pray together fro the repose of her soul.” Then she added that she did not know how to act — she did not know whether she had the right to make Panshin wait any longer for her decision.

“Why so?” inquired Lavretsky.

“Because,” she said, &ldquo............