For a long time Lavretsky could not begin what he had to say, feeling that he had not complete mastery over himself.  As for his wife, he saw that she was not at all afraid of him, although she looked as if she might at any moment go off into a fainting fit.

“Listen, Madame,” at last he began, breathing with difficulty, and at times setting his teeth hard.  “There is no reason why we should be hypocritical towards each other.  I do not believe in your repentance; but even if it were genuine, it would be impossible for me to rejoin you and live with you again.”

Varvara Pavlovna bit her lips and half closed her eyes.  “That’s dislike,” she thought.  “It’s all over.  I’m not even a woman for him.”

“Impossible,” repeated Lavretsky, and buttoned his coat.  “I don’t know why you have been pleased to honor me by coming here.  Most probably you are out of funds.”

“Don’t say that—­you wound my feelings,” whispered Varvara Pavlovna.

“However that may be, you are still, to my sorrow, my wife.  I cannot drive you away, so this is what I propose.  You can go to Lavriki—­to-day if you like—­and live there!  There is an excellent house there, as you know.  You shall have every thing you can want, besides your allowance.  Do you consent?”

Varvara Pavlovna raised her embroidered handkerchief to her face.

“I have already told you,” she said, with a nervous twitching of her lips, “that I will agree to any arrangement you may please to make for me.  At present I have only to ask you—­will you at least allow me to thank you for your generosity?”

“No thanks, I beg of you—­we shall do much better without them,” hastily exclaimed Lavretsky.  “Then, he added, approaching the door, I may depend upon—­”

“To-morrow I will be at Lavriki,” replied Varvara Pavlovna, rising respectfully from her seat.  “But Fedor Ivanich—­” ("She no longer familiarly called him Theodore).

“What do you wish to say?”

“I am aware that I have not yet in any way deserved forgiveness.  But may I hope that, at least, in time—­”

“Ah, Varvara Pavlovna,” cried Lavretsky, interrupting her, “you are a clever woman; but I, too, am not a fool.  I know well that you have no need of forgiveness.  Besides, I forgave you long ago; but there has always been a gulf between you and me.”

“I shall know how to submit,” answered Varvara Pavlovna, and bowed her head.  “I have not forgotten my fault.  I should not have wondered if I had learnt that you had even been glad to hear of my death,” she added in a soft voice, with a slight wave of her hand towards the newspaper, which was lying on the table where Lavretsky had forgotten it.

Lavretsky shuddered.  The feuilleton had a pencil mark against it.  Varvara Pavlovna gazed at him with an expression of even greater humility than before on her face.  She looked very handsome at that moment.  Her grey dress, made by a Parisian milliner, fitted closely to her pliant figure, which seemed almost like that of a girl of seventeen.  Her soft and slender neck, circled by a white collar, her bosom’s gentle movement under the influence of her steady breathing, her arms and hands, on which she wore neither bracelets nor rings, her whole figure, from her lustrous hair to the tip of the scarcely visible bottine, all was so artistic!