Lavretsky went out of the house into the garden, and sat down on the bench he knew so well.  There—­on that loved spot, in sight of that house in which he had fruitlessly, and for the last time, stretched forth his hands towards that cup of promise in which foamed and sparkled the golden wine of enjoyment,—­he, a lonely, homeless wanderer, while the joyous cries of that younger generation which had already forgotten him came flying to his ears, gazed steadily at his past life.

His heart became very sorrowful, but it was free now from any crushing sense of pain.  He had nothing to be ashamed of; he had many sources of consolation.  “Play on, young vigorous lives!” he thought—­and his thoughts had no taint of bitterness in them—­“the future awaits you, and your path of life in it will be comparatively easy for you.  You will not be obliged, as we were, to seek out your path, to struggle, to fall, to rise again in utter darkness.  We had to seek painfully by what means we might hold out to the end—­and how many there were amongst us who did not hold out!—­but your part is now to act, to work—­and the blessing of old men like me shall be with you.  For my part, after the day I have spent here, after the emotions I have here experienced, nothing remains for me but to bid you a last farewell; and, although sadly, yet without a tinge of envy, without a single gloomy feeling, to say, in sight of death, in sight of my awaiting God, ‘Hail, lonely old age!  Useless life, burn yourself out!’”

Lavretsky rose up quietly, and quietly went away.  No one observed him, no one prevented him from going.  Louder than ever sounded the joyous cries in the garden, behind the thick green walls of the lofty lime-trees.  Lavretsky got into his tarantass, and told his coachman to drive him home without hurrying the horses.

* * * * *

“And is that the end?” the unsatisfied reader may perhaps ask.  “What became of Lavretsky afterwards? and of Liza?” But what can one say about people who are still alive, but who have already quitted the worldly stage?  Why should we turn back to them?  It is said that Lavretsky has visited the distant convent in which Liza has hidden herself—­and has seen her.  As she crossed from choir to choir, she passed close by him—­passed onwards steadily, with the quick but silent step of a nun, and did not look at him.  Only an almost imperceptible tremor was seen to move the eyelashes of the eye which was visible to him; only still lower did she bend her emaciated face; and the fingers of her clasped hands, enlaced with her rosary, still more closely compressed each other.

Of what did they both think? what did they both feel?  Who can know? who shall tell?  Life has its moments—­has its feelings—­to which we may be allowed to allude, but on which it is not good to dwell.

THE END.