They looked at one another without speaking.

“Well, what have you to say?” Lavretsky brought out at last.

“What have I to say?” returned Lemm, grimly.  “I have nothing to say.  All is dead, and we are dead (Alles ist todt, und wir sind todt).  So you’re going to the right, are you?”

“Yes.”

“And I go to the left.  Good-bye.”

The following morning Fedor Ivanitch set off with his wife for Lavriky.  She drove in front in the carriage with Ada and Justine; he behind, in the coach.  The pretty little girl did not move away from the window the whole journey; she was astonished at everything; the peasants, the women, the wells, the yokes over the horses’ heads, the bells and the flocks of crows.  Justine shared her wonder.  Varvara Pavlovna laughed at their remarks and exclamations.  She was in excellent spirits; before leaving town, she had come to an explanation with her husband.

“I understand your position,” she said to him, and from the look in her subtle eyes, he was able to infer that she understood his position fully, “but you must do me, at least, this justice, that I am easy to live with; I will not fetter you or hinder you; I wanted to secure Ada’s future, I want nothing more.”

“Well, you have obtained your object,” observed Fedor Ivanitch.

“I only dream of one thing now:  to hide myself for ever in obscurity.  I shall remember your goodness always.”

“Enough of that,” he interrupted.

“And I shall know how to respect your independence and tranquillity,” she went on, completing the phrases she had prepared.

Lavretsky made her a low bow.

Varvara Pavlovna then believed her husband was thanking her in his heart.

On the evening of the next day they reached Lavriky; a week later, Lavretsky set off for Moscow, leaving his wife five thousand roubles for her household expenses; and the day after Lavretsky’s departure, Panshin made his appearance.  Varvara Pavlovna had begged him not to forget her in her solitude.  She gave him the best possible reception, and, till a late hour of the night, the lofty apartments of the house and even the garden re-echoed with the sound of music, singing, and lively French talk.  For three days Varvara Pavlovna entertained Panshin; when he took leave of her, warmly pressing her lovely hands, he promised to come back very soon—­and he kept his word.

Chapter XLV

Lisa had a room to herself on the second story of her mother’s house, a clean bright little room with a little white bed, with pots of flowers in the corners and before the windows, a small writing-table, a book-stand, and a crucifix on the wall.  It was always called the nursery; Lisa had been born in it.  When she returned from the church where she had seen Lavretsky she set everything in her room in order more carefully than usual, dusted it everywhere,