Varvara Pavlovna listened to him, slightly smiling at times, then by degrees she too began to talk.  She spoke in a modest way about Paris, about her travels, about Baden; she made Maria Dmitrievna laugh two or three times, and each time she uttered a gentle sigh afterwards, as if she were secretly reproaching herself for her unbecoming levity; she asked leave to bring Ada to the house; she took off her gloves, and with her smooth white hands she pointed out how and where flounces, ruches, lace, and so forth, were worn; she promised to bring a bottle of new English scent—­the Victoria essence—­and was as pleased as a child when Maria Dmitrievna consented to accept it as a present; and she melted into tears at the remembrance of the emotion she had experienced when she heard the first Russian bells.

“So profoundly did they sink into my very heart,” she said.

At that moment Liza came into the room.

All that day, ever since the moment when, cold with dismay, Liza had read Lavretsky’s note, she had been preparing herself for an interview with his wife.  She foresaw that she would see her, and she determined not to avoid her, by way of inflicting upon herself a punishment for what she considered her culpable hopes.  The unexpected crisis which had taken place in her fate had profoundly shaken her.  In the course of about a couple of hours her face seemed to have grown thin.  But she had not shed a single tear.  “It is what you deserve,” she said to herself, repressing, though not without difficulty, and at the cost of considerable agitation, certain bitter thoughts and evil impulses which frightened her as they arose in her mind.  “Well, I must go,” she thought, as soon as she heard of Madame Lavretsky’s arrival, and she went.

She stood outside the drawing-room door for a long time before she could make up her mind to open it At last, saying to herself, “I am guilty before her,” she entered the room, and forced herself to look at her, even forced herself to smile.  Varvara Pavlovna came forward to meet her as soon as she saw her come in, and made her a slight, but still a respectful salutation.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” she began, in an insinuating tone.”  Your mamma has been so indulgent towards me that I hope that you too will be—­good to me.”

The expression of Varvara Pavlovna’s face as she uttered these last words, her cunning smile, her cold and, at the same time, loving look, the movements of her arms and shoulders, her very dress, her whole being, aroused such a feeling of repugnance in Liza’s mind that she absolutely could not answer her, and only by a strong effort could succeed in holding out her hand to her.  “This young lady dislikes me,” thought Varvara Pavlovna, as she squeezed Liza’s cold fingers, then, turning to Maria Dmitrievna, she said in a half whisper. “Mais elle est delicieuse!”

Liza faintly reddened.  In that exclamation she seemed to detect a tone of irony and insult.  However, she determined not to trust to that impression, and she took her seat at her embroidery frame near the window.