“On ourselves, ourselves, believe me” (he seized both her hands; Lisa grew pale and almost with terror but still steadfastly looked at him):  “if only we do not ruin our lives.  For some people marriage for love may be unhappiness; but not for you, with your calm temperament, and your clear soul; I beseech you, do not marry without love, from a sense of duty, self-sacrifice, or anything . . . .  That is infidelity, that is mercenary, and worse still.  Believe me,—­I have the right to say so; I have paid dearly for the right.  And if your God—.”

At that instant Lavretsky noticed that Lenotchka and Shurotchka were standing near Lisa, and staring in dumb amazement at him.  He dropped Lisa’s hands, saying hurriedly, “I beg your pardon,” and turned away towards the house.

“One thing only I beg of you,” he added, returning again to Lisa; “don’t decide at once, wait a little, think of what I have said to you.  Even if you don’t believe me, even if you did decide on a marriage of prudence—­even in that case you mustn’t marry Panshin.  He can’t be your husband.  You will promise me not to be in a hurry, won’t you?”

Lisa tried to answer Lavretsky, but she did not utter a word—­not because she was resolved to “be in a hurry,” but because her heart was beating too violently and a feeling, akin to terror, stopped her breath.

Chapter XXX

As he was coming away from the Kalitins, Lavretsky met Panshin; they bowed coldly to one another.  Lavretsky went to his lodgings, and locked himself in.  He was experiencing emotions such as he had hardly ever experienced before.  How long ago was it since he had thought himself in a state of peaceful petrifaction?  How long was it since he had felt as he had expressed himself at the very bottom of the river?  What had changed his position?  What had brought him out of his solitude?  The most ordinary, inevitable, though always unexpected event, death?  Yes; but he was not thinking so much of his wife’s death and his own freedom, as of this question—­what answer would Lisa give Panshin?  He felt that in the course of the last three days, he had come to look at her with different eyes; he remembered how after returning home when he thought of her in the silence of the night, he had said to himself, “if only!” . . .  That “if only”—­in which he had referred to the past, to the impossible had come to pass, though not as he had imagined it,—­but his freedom alone was little.  “She will obey her mother,” he thought, “she will marry Panshin; but even if she refuses him, won’t it be just the same as far as I am concerned?” Going up to the looking-glass he minutely scrutinised his own face and shrugged his shoulders.