The tears flowed down Maria Dmitrievna’s cheeks.  She did not wipe them away; she was fond of weeping.  Meanwhile Lavretsky sat as if on thorns.  “Good God!” he thought, “what torture this is!  What a day this has been for me!”

“You do not reply,” Maria Dmitrievna recommenced:  “how am I to understand you?  Is it possible that you can be so cruel?  No, I cannot believe that.  I feel that my words have convinced you.  Fedor Ivanich, God will reward you for your goodness!  Now from my hands receive your wife!”

Lavretsky jumped up from his chair scarcely knowing what he was doing.  Maria Dmitrievna had risen also, and had passed rapidly to the other side of the screen, from behind which she brought out Madame Lavretsky.  Pale, half lifeless, with downcast eyes, that lady seemed as if she had surrendered her whole power of thinking or willing for herself, and had given herself over entirely into the hands of Maria Dmitrievna.

Lavretsky recoiled a pace.

“You have been there all this time!” he exclaimed.

“Don’t blame her,” Maria Dmitrievna hastened to say.  “She wouldn’t have stayed for any thing; but I made her stay; I put her behind the screen.  She declared that it would make you angrier than ever; but I wouldn’t even listen to her.  I know you better than she does.  Take then from my hands your wife!  Go to him, Varvara; have no fear; fall at your husband’s feet” (here she gave Varvara’s arm a pull), “and may my blessing—­”

“Stop, Maria Dmitrievna!” interposed Lavretsky, in a voice shaking with emotion.  “You seem to like sentimental scenes.” (Lavretsky was not mistaken; from her earliest school-days Maria Dmitrievna had always been passionately fond of a touch of stage effect.) “They may amuse you, but to other people they may prove very unpleasant.  However, I am not going to talk to you.  In this scene you do not play the leading part.”

“What is it you want from me, Madame?” he added, turning to his wife.  “Have I not done for you all that I could?  Do not tell me that it was not you who got up this scene.  I should not believe you.  You know that I cannot believe you.  What is it you want?  You are clever.  You do nothing without an object.  You must feel that to live with you, as I used formerly to live, is what I am not in a position to do—­not because I am angry with you, but because I have become a different man.  I told you that the very day you returned; and at that time you agreed with me in your own mind.  But, perhaps, you wish to rehabilitate yourself in public opinion.  Merely to live in my house is too little for you; you want to live with me under the same roof.  Is it not so?”

“I want you to pardon me,” replied Varvara Pavlovna, without lifting her eyes from the ground.

“She wants you to pardon her,” repeated Maria Dmitrievna.

“And not for my own sake, but for Ada’s,” whispered Varvara.

“Not for her own sake, but for your Ada’s,” repeated Maria Dmitrievna.