Lavretsky went into the room and sank into a chair.  The old man stood still before him, wrapping the skirts of his shabby striped dressing-gown around him, shrinking together and gnawing his lips.

“My wife is here,” Lavretsky brought out.  He raised his head and suddenly broke into involuntary laughter.

Lemm’s face expressed bewilderment, but he did not even smile, only wrapped himself closer in his dressing-gown.

“Of course, you don’t know,” Lavretsky went on, “I had imagined . . .  I read in a paper that she was dead.”

“O—­oh, did you read that lately?” asked Lemm.

“Yes, lately.”

“O—­oh,” repeated the old man, raising his eyebrows.  “And she is here?”

“Yes.  She is at my house now; and I . . .  I am an unlucky fellow.”

And he laughed again.

“You are an unlucky fellow,” Lemm repeated slowly.

“Christopher Fedoritch,” began Lavretsky, “would you undertake to carry a note for me?”

“H’m.  May I know to whom?”

“Lisavet—­”

“Ah . . . yes, yes, I understand.  Very good.  And when must the letter be received?”

“To-morrow, as early as possible.”

“H’m.  I can send Katrine, my cook.  No, I will go myself.”

“And you will bring me an answer?”

“Yes, I will bring you an answer.”

Lemm sighed.

“Yes, my poor young friend; you are certainly an unlucky young man.”

Lavretsky wrote a few words to Lisa.  He told her of his wife’s arrival, begged her to appoint a meeting with him,—­then he flung himself on the narrow sofa, with his face to the wall; and the old man lay down on the bed, and kept muttering a long while, coughing and drinking off his decoction by gulps.

The morning came; they both got up.  With strange eyes they looked at one another.  At that moment Lavretsky longed to kill himself.  The cook, Katrine, brought them some villainous coffee.  It struck eight.  Lemm put on his hat, and saying that he was going to give a lesson at the Kalitins’ at ten, but he could find a suitable pretext for going there now, he set off.  Lavretsky flung himself again on the little sofa, and once more the same bitter laugh stirred in the depth of his soul.  He thought of how his wife had driven him out of his house; he imagined Lisa’s position, covered his eyes and clasped his hands behind his head.  At last Lemm came back and brought him a scrap of paper, on which Lisa had scribbled in pencil the following words:  “We cannot meet to-day; perhaps, to-morrow evening.  Good-bye.”  Lavretsky thanked Lemm briefly and indifferently, and went home.

He found his wife at breakfast; Ada, in curl-papers, in a little white frock with blue ribbons, was eating her mutton cutlet.  Varvara Pavlovna rose at once directly Lavretsky entered the room, and went to meet him with humility in her face.  He asked her to follow him into the study, shut the door after them, and began to walk up and down; she sat down, modestly laying one hand over the other, and began to follow his movements with her eyes, which were still beautiful, though they were pencilled lightly under their lids.