“I am going to-morrow, aunt.”

“Where?”

“Home to Vassilyevskoe.”

“To-morrow?”

“Yes, to-morrow.”

“Well, if to-morrow it must be.  God bless you—­you know best.  Only mind you come and say good-bye to me.”  The old woman patted his cheek.  “I did not think I should be here to see you; not that I have made up my mind to die yet a while—­I shall last another ten years, I daresay:  all we Pestovs live long; your late grandfather used to say we had two lives; but you see there was no telling how much longer you were going to dangle about abroad.  Well, you’re a fine lad, a fine lad; can you lift twenty stone with one hand as you used to do, eh?  Your late pap was fantastical in some things, if I may say so; but he did well in having that Swiss to bring you up; do you remember you used to fight with your fists with him?—­gymnastics, wasn’t it they called it?  But there, why I am gabbling away like this; I have only been hindering Mr. PanSHIN (she never pronounced his name PANshin as was correct) from holding forth.  Besides, we’d better go and have tea; yes, let’s go on to the terrace, my boy, and drink it there; we have some real cream, not like what you get in your Londons and Parises.  Come along, come along, and you, Fedusha, give me your arm.  Oh! but what an arm it is!  Upon my word, no fear of my stumbling with you!”

Every one got up and went out on to the terrace, except Gedeonovsky, who quietly took his departure.  During the whole of Lavretsky’s conversation with Marya Dmitrievna, Panshin, and Marfa Timofyevna, he sat in a corner, blinking attentively, with an open mouth of childish curiosity; now he was in haste to spread the news of the new arrival through the town.

At eleven o’clock on the evening of the same day, this is what was happening in Madame Kalitin’s house.  Downstairs, Vladimir Nikolaitch, seizing a favourable moment, was taking leave of Lisa at the drawing-room door, and saying to her, as he held her hand, “You know who it is draws me here; you know why I am constantly coming to your house; what need of words when all is clear as it is?” Lisa did not speak, and looked on the ground, without smiling, with her brows slightly contracted, and a flush on her cheek, but she did not draw away her hands.  While up-stairs, in Marfa Timofyevna’s room, by the light of a little lamp hanging before the tarnished old holy images, Lavretsky was sitting in a low chair, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands; the old woamn, standing before him, now and then silently stroked his hair.  He spent more than an hour with her, after taking leave of his hostess; he had scarcely said anything to his kind old friend, and she did not question him . . . .  Indeed, what need to speak, what was there to ask?  Without that she understood all, and felt for everything of which his heart was full.

Chapter VIII