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 any 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 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
for 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, “I begin now to suspect what that decision will
be.”
She declared that her head ached and went to her own room up-stairs,
hesitatingly holding out the tips of her fingers to Lavretsky.
The next day Lavretsky went to mass. Lisa was already in the church when
he came in. She noticed him though she did not turn round towards him.
She prayed fervently, her eyes were full of a calm light, calmly she
bowed her head and lifted it again. He felt that she was praying for him
too, and his heart was filled with a marvelous tenderness. He was happy
and a little ashamed. The people reverently standing, the homely faces,
the harmonious singing, the scent of incense, the long slanting gleams
of light from the windows, the very darkness of the walls and arched
roofs, all went to his heart. For long he had not been to church,
for long he had not turned to God: even now he uttered no words of
prayer--he did not even pray without words--but, at least, for a moment
in all his mind, if not in his body, he bowed down and meekly humbled
himself to earth. He remembered how, in his childhood, he had always
prayed in church until he had felt, as it were, a cool touch on his
brow; that, he used to think then, is the guardian angel receiving me,
laying on me the seal of grace. He glanced at Lisa. “You brought me
here,” he thought, “touch me, touch my soul.” She was still praying
calmly; her face seemed to him full of joy, and he was softened
anew: he prayed for another soul, peace; for his own, forgiveness.
They met in the porch; she greeted him with glad and gracious
seriousness. The sun brightly lighted up the young grass in the
church-yard, and the striped dresses and kerchiefs of the women; the
bells of the churches near were tinkling overhead; and the crows were
cawing about the hedges. Lavretsky stood with uncovered head, a smile
on his lips; the light breeze lifted his hair, and the ribbons of Lisa’s
hat. He put Lisa and Lenotchka who was with her into their carriage,
divided all his money among the poor, and peacefully sauntered home.