On another occasion, as Lavretsky was sitting in the drawing-room, listening to the insinuating tones of Gedeonovsky’s wearisome verbiage, he suddenly turned round, he knew not why, and caught the deep, attentive, inquiring look of Liza’s eyes.  That enigmatical look was directed towards him.  The whole night long Lavretsky thought of it.  His love was not like that of a boy, nor was it consistent with his age to sigh and to torment himself; and indeed it was not with a feeling of a merely passionate nature that Liza had inspired him.  But love has its sufferings for every age—­and he became perfectly acquainted with them.

XXXI.

One day Lavretsky was as usual at the Kalitines’.  An overpoweringly hot afternoon had been followed by such a beautiful evening that Madame Kalitine, notwithstanding her usual aversion to a draught, ordered all the windows and the doors leading into the garden to be opened.  Moreover, she announced that she was not going to play cards, that it would be a sin to do so in such lovely weather, and that it was a duty to enjoy the beauties of nature.

Panshine was the only stranger present.  Influenced by the evening, and feeling a flow of artistic emotion, but not wishing to sing in Lavretsky’s presence, he threw himself into poetry He read—­and read well, only with too much consciousness, and with needlessly subtle distinctions—­some of Lermontof’s poems (Pushkin had not then succeeded in getting back into fashion).  Suddenly, as if ashamed of his emotion, he began in reference to the well-known Duma,[A] to blame and attack the new generation, not losing the opportunity which the subject afforded him of setting forth how, if the power lay in his hands, he would alter everything his own way.

[Footnote A:  For the poem, so-called, see note at end of chapter.]

“Russia,” he said, “has lagged behind Europe, and must be driven up alongside of it.  We are told that ours is a young country.  That is all nonsense.  Besides, we have no inventive power.  Khomakof[A] himself admits that we have never invented so much as a mousetrap.  Consequently we are obliged to imitate others, whether we like it or no.”

[Footnote A:  A poet, who was one of the leaders of the Slavophile party.]

“‘We are ill,’ says Lermontof, and I agree with him.  But we are ill because we have only half become Europeans.  With that which has wounded us we must be cured.” ("Le cadastre” thought Lavretsky.) “Among us,” he continued, “the best heads, les meilleures tetes, have long been convinced of this.  In reality, all peoples are alike; only introduce good institutions, and the affair is settled.  To be sure, one may make some allowance for the existing life of the nation; that is our business, the business of the people who are” (he all but said “statesmen”) “in the public service; but if need arises, don’t be uneasy.  Those institutions will modify that life itself.”