Four days later, he set off for home.  His coach rolled quickly along the soft cross-road.  There had been no rain for a fortnight; a fine milk mist was diffused in the air and hung over the distant woods; a smell of burning came from it.  A multitude of darkish clouds with blurred edges were creeping across the pale blue sky; a fairly strong breeze blew a dry and steady gale, without dispelling the heat.  Leaning back with his head on the cushion and his arms crossed on his breast, Lavretsky watched the furrowed fields unfolding like a fan before him, the willow bushes as they slowly came into sight, and the dull ravens and rooks, who looked sidelong with stupid suspicion at the approaching carriage, the long ditches, overgrown with mugwort, wormwood, and mountain ash; and as he watched the fresh fertile wilderness and solitude of this steppe country, the greenness, the long slopes, and valleys with stunted oak bushes, the grey villages, and scant birch trees,—­the whole Russian landscape, so long unseen by him, stirred emotion at once pleasant, sweet and almost painful in his heart, and he felt weighed down by a kind of pleasant oppression.  Slowly his thoughts wandered; their outlines were as vague and indistinct as the outlines of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead.  He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping his head to her bosom, she had begun to wail over him, then had glanced at Glafira Petrovna—­and checked herself.  He remembered his father, at first vigorous, discontented with everything, with strident voice; and later, blind, tearful, with unkempt grey beard; he remembered how one day after drinking a glass too much at dinner, and spilling the gravy over his napkin, he began to relate his conquests, growing red in the face, and winking with his sightless eyes; he remember Varvara Pavlovna,—­and involuntarily shuddered, as a man shudders from a sudden internal pain, and shook his head.  Then his! thoughts came to a stop at Lisa.

“There,” he thought, “Is a new creature, only just entering on life.  A nice girl, what will become of her?  She is good-looking too.  A pale, fresh face, mouth and eyes so serious, and an honest innocent expression.  It is a pity she seems a little enthusiastic.  A good figure, and she moves so lightly, and a soft voice.  I like the way she stops suddenly, listens attentively, without a smile, then grows thoughtful and shakes back her hair.  I fancy, too, that Panshin is not good enough for her.  What’s amiss with him, though?  And besides, what business have I to wonder about it?  She will go along the same road as all the rest.  I had better go to sleep.”  And Lavretsky closed his eyes.