Lavretsky was no longer a very young man. He could not long delude
himself as to the nature of the feeling with which Liza had inspired
him. On that day he became finally convinced that he was in love with
her. That conviction did not give him much pleasure.
"Is it possible," he thought, "that at five-and-thirty I have nothing
else to do than to confide my heart a second time to a woman's
keeping? But Liza is not like _her_. She would not have demanded
humiliating sacrifices from me. She would not have led me astray from
my occupations. She would have inspired me herself with a love for
honorable hard work, and we should have gone forward together towards
some noble end. Yes," he said, bringing his reflections to a close,
"all that is very well. But the worst of it is that she will not go
anywhere with me. It was not for nothing that she told me she was
afraid of me. And as to her not being in love with Panshine--that is
but a poor consolation!"
Lavretsky went to Vasilievskoe; but he could not manage to spend even
four days there--so wearisome did it seem to him. Moreover, he was
tormented by suspense. The news which M. Jules had communicated
required confirmation, and he had not yet received any letters. He
returned to town, and passed the evening at the Kalitines'. He could
easily see that Madame Kalitine had been set against him; but he
succeeded in mollifying her a little by losing some fifteen roubles to
her at piquet. He also contrived to get half-an-hour alone with Liza,
in spite of her mother having recommended her, only the evening
before, not to be too intimate with a man "_qui a tin si grand
ridicule_."
He found a change in her. She seemed to have become more
contemplative. She blamed him for stopping away; and she asked him if
he would not go to church the next day--the next day being Sunday.
"Do come," she continued, before he had time to answer. "We will pray
together for the repose of _her_ soul." Then she added that she did
not know what she ought to do--that she did not know whether she had
any right to make Panshine wait longer for her decision.
"Why?" asked Lavretsky.
"Because," she replied, "I begin to suspect by this time what that
decision will be."
Then she said that she had a headache, and went to her room, after
irresolutely holding out the ends of her fingers to Lavretsky.
The next day Lavretsky went to morning service. Liza was already in
the church when he entered. He remarked her, though she did not look
towards him. She prayed fervently; her eyes shone with a quiet light;
quietly she bowed and lifted her head.
He felt that she was praying for him also, and a strange emotion
filled his soul. The people standing gravely around, the familiar
faces, the harmonious chant, the odor of the incense, the long rays
slanting through the windows, the very sombreness of the walls and
arches--all appealed to his heart. It was long since he had been in
church--long since he had turned his thoughts to God. And even now he
did not utter any words of prayer--he did not even pray without words;
but nevertheless, for a moment, if not in body, at least in mind, he
bowed clown and bent himself humbly to the ground. He remembered how,
in the days of his childhood, he always used to pray in church till he
felt on his forehead something like a kind of light touch. "That" he
used then to think, "is my guardian angel visiting me and pressing
on me the seal of election." He looked at Liza. "It is you who have
brought me here," he thought. "Touch me--touch my soul!" Meanwhile,
she went on quietly praying. Her face seemed to him to be joyous,
and once more he felt softened, and he asked, for another's soul,
rest--for his own, pardon. They met outside in the porch, and she
received him with a friendly look of serious happiness. The
sun brightly lit up the fresh grass in the church-yard and the
many-colored dresses and kerchiefs of the women. The bells of the
neighboring churches sounded on high; the sparrows chirped on the
walls. Lavretsky stood by, smiling and bare-headed; a light breeze
played with his hair and Liza's, and with the ends of Liza's bonnet
strings. He seated Liza and her companion Lenochka, in the carriage,
gave away all the change he had about him to the beggars, and then
strolled slowly home.