There were no lights in the room, but the rays of the rising moon entered obliquely through the window.  The listening air seemed to tremble into music, and the poor little apartment looked like a sanctuary, while the silvery half-light gave to the head of the old man a noble and spiritual expression.

Lavretsky came up to him and embraced him.  At first Lemm did not respond to his embrace—­even put him aside with his elbow.  Then he remained rigid for some time, without moving any of his limbs, wearing the same severe, almost repellent, look as before, and only growling out twice, “Aha!” But at last a change came over him, his face grew calm, and his head was no longer thrown back.  Then, in reply to Lavretsky’s warm congratulations, he first smiled a little, and afterwards began to cry, sobbing faintly, like a child.

“It is wonderful,” he said, “your coming just at this very moment.  But I know every thing—­I know all about it.”

“You know every thing?” exclaimed Lavretsky in astonishment.

“You have heard what I said,” replied Lemm.  “Didn’t you understand that I knew every thing?”

* * * * *

Lavretsky did not get to sleep till the morning.  All night long he remained sitting on the bed.  Neither did Liza sleep.  She was praying.

XXXIII.

The reader knows how Lavretsky had been brought up and educated.  We will now say a few words about Liza’s education.  She was ten years old when her father died, who had troubled himself but little about her.  Overwhelmed with business, constantly absorbed in the pursuit of adding to his income, a man of bilious temperament and a sour and impatient nature, he never grudged paying for the teachers and tutors, or for the dress and the other necessaries required by his children, but he could not bear “to nurse his squallers,” according to his own expression—­and, indeed, he never had any time for nursing them.  He used to work, become absorbed in business, sleep a little, play cards on rare occasions, then work again.  He often compared himself to a horse yoked to a threshing machine.  “My life has soon been spent,” he said on his death-bed, a bitter smile contracting his lips.

As to Maria Dmitrievna, she really troubled herself about Liza very little more than her husband did, for all that she had taken credit to herself, when speaking to Lavretsky, for having educated her children herself.  She used to dress her like a doll, and when visitors were present, she would caress her and call her a good child and her darling, and that was all.  Every continuous care troubled that indolent lady.