This was too much even for Panshine, who grew confused, and changed the conversation.  He tried to turn it on the beauty of the starry heavens, on Schubert’s music, but somehow his efforts did not prove successful.  He ended by offering to play at piquet with Maria Dmitrievna.  “What! on such an evening as this?” she feebly objected; but then she ordered the cards to be brought.

Panshine noisily tore open a new pack; and Liza and Lavretsky, as if by mutual consent, both rose from their seats and placed themselves near Marfa Timofeevna.  They both suddenly experienced a great feeling of happiness, mingled with a sense of mutual dread, which made them glad of the presence of a third person; at the same time, they both felt that the uneasiness from which they had suffered during the last few days had disappeared, and would return no more.

The old lady stealthily tapped Lavretsky on the cheek, screwed up her eyes with an air of pleasant malice, and shook her head repeatedly, saying in a whisper, “You’ve done for the genius—­thanks!” Then all became still in the room.  Nothing was to be heard but the faint crackling of the wax lights, and sometimes the fall of a hand on the table, or an exclamation on the score of points, and the song of the nightingale which, powerful, almost insolently loud, flowed in a great wave through the window, together with the dewy freshness of the night.

* * * * *

NOTE.—­The following is a tolerably literal translation of the poem of Lermontof’s to which allusion is made on p. 208, and which created no slight sensation when it first appeared, in the year 1838:—­

A THOUGHT.

Sorrowfully do I look upon the present generation!  Its future seems either gloomy or meaningless, and meanwhile, whether under the burden of knowledge or of doubt, it grows old in idleness.

When scarcely out of the cradle, we reap the rich inheritance of the errors of our fathers, and the results of their tardy thoughts.  Life soon grows wearisome for us, like a banquet at a stranger’s festival, like a level road leading nowhere.

In the commencement of our career, we fall away without a struggle, shamefully careless about right and wrong, shamefully timid in the face of danger.

So does a withered fruit which has prematurely ripened—­attractive neither to the eye nor to the palate—­hang like an alien orphan among blossoms; and the hour of their beauty is that of its fall.

Our intellect has dried up in the pursuit of fruitless science, while we have been concealing the purest of hopes from the knowledge of those who are near and dear to us, and stifling the noble utterance of such sentiments as are ridiculed by a mocking spirit.

We have scarcely tasted of the cup of enjoyment, but for all that we have not husbanded our youthful strength.  While we were always in dread of satiety, we have contrived to drain each joy of its best virtues.