Lisa flushed.

“You are mistaken, Fedor Ivanitch,” she said:  “you are wrong in thinking . . . .  But don’t you like Vladimir Nikolaitch?” she asked suddenly.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“I think he has no heart.”

The smile left Lisa’s face.

“It is your habit to judge people severely,” she observed after a long silence.

“I don’t think it is.  What right have I to judge others severely, do you suppose, when I must ask for indulgency myself?  Or have you forgotten that I am a laughing stock to everyone, who is not too indifferent even to scoff? . . .  By the way,” he added, “did you keep your promise?”

“What promise?”

“Did you pray for me?”

“Yes, I prayed for you, and I pray for you every day.  But please do not speak lightly of that.”

Lavretsky began to assure Lisa that the idea of doing so had never entered his head, that he had the deepest reverence for every conviction; then he went off into a discourse upon religion, its significance in the history of mankind, the significance of Christianity.

“One must be a Christian,” observed Lisa, not without some effort, “not so as to know the divine . . . and the . . . earthly, because every man has to die.”

Lavretsky raised his eyes in involuntary astonishment upon Lisa and met her gaze.

“What a strange saying you have just uttered!” he said.

“It is not my saying,” she replied.

“Not yours . . . .  But what made you speak of death?”

“I don’t know.  I often think of it.”

“Often?”

“Yes.”

“One would not suppose so, looking at you now; you have such a bright, happy face, you are smiling.”

“Yes, I am very happy just now,” replied Lisa simply.

Lavretsky would have liked to seize both her hands, and press them warmly.

“Lisa, Lisa!” cried Marya Dmitrievna, “do come here, and look what a fine carp I have caught.”

“In a minute, maman,” replied Lisa, and went towards her, but Lavretsky remained sitting on his willow.  “I talk to her just as if life were not over for me,” he thought.  As she went away, Lisa hung her hat on a twig; with strange, almost tender emotion, Lavretsky looked at the hat, and its long rather crumpled ribbons.  Lisa soon came back to him, and again took her stand on the platform.

“What makes you think Vladimir Nikolaitch has no heart?” she asked a few minutes later.

“I have told you already that I may be mistaken; time will show, however.”

Lisa grew thoughtful.  Lavretsky began to tell her about his daily life at Vassilyevskoe, about Mihalevitch, and about Anton; he felt a need to talk to Lisa, to share with her everything that was passing in his heart; she listened so sweetly, so attentively; her few replies and observations seemed to him so simple and so intelligent.  He even told her so.