With Lemm, Mihalevitch did not get on; his noisy talk and brusque manners scared the German, who was unused to such behaviour.  One poor devil detects another by instinct at once, but in old age he rarely gets on with him, and that is hardly astonishing, he has nothing to share with him, not even hopes.

Before setting off, Mihalevitch had another long discussion with Lavretsky, foretold his ruin, if he did not see the error of his ways, exhorted him to devote himself seriously to the welfare of his peasants, and pointed to himself as an example, saying that he had been purified in the furnace of suffering; and in the same breath called himself several times a happy man, comparing himself with the fowl of the air and the lily of the field.

“A black lily, any way,” observed Lavretsky.

“Ah, brother, don’t be a snob!” retorted Mihalevitch, good-naturedly, “but thank God rather there is a pure plebeian blood in your veins too.  But I see that you want some pure, heavenly creature to draw you out of your apathy.”

“Thanks, brother,” remarked Lavretsky.  “I have had quite enough of those heavenly creatures.”

“Silence, ceeneec!” cried Mihalevitch.

“Cynic,” Lavretsky corrected him.

“Ceeneec, just so,” repeated Mihalevitch unabashed.

Even when he had taken his seat in the carriage, to which his flat, yellow, strangely light trunk was carried, he still talked; muffled in a kind of Spanish cloak with a collar, brown with age, and a clasp of two lion’s paws; he went on developing his views on the destiny of Russian, and waving his swarthy hand in the air, as though he were sowing the seeds of her future prosperity.  The horses started at last.

“Remember my three last words,” he cried, thrusting his whole body out of the carriage and balancing so, “Religion, progress, humanity! . . .  Farewell.”

His head, with a foraging cap pulled down over his eyes, disappeared.  Lavretsky was left standing alone on the steps, and he gazed steadily into the distance along the road till the carriage disappeared out of sight.  “Perhaps he is right, after all,” he thought as he went back into the house; “perhaps I am a loafer.”  Many of Mihalevitch’s words had sunk irresistibly into his heart, though he had disputed and disagreed with him.  If a man only has a good heart, no one can resist him.

Chapter XXVI

Two days later, Marya Dmitrievna visited Vassilyevskoe according to her promise, with all her young people.  The little girls ran at once into the garden, while Marya Dmitrievna languidly walked through the rooms and languidly admired everything.  She regarded her visit to Lavretsky as a sign of great condescension, almost as a deed of charity.  She smiled graciously when Anton and Apraxya kissed her hand in the old-fashioned house-servants’ style; and in a weak voice, speaking through her nose, asked for some tea.  To the