‘Let me see how you look, let me see,’ she said, drawing back from his face. ‘Ah, splendid! A little older but not a whit less handsome. Now don’t you go kissing my hands – you give me a real kiss, if my wrinkled old cheeks don’t repel you! I don’t suppose you asked whether your old aunt was alive or not, did you? But you were a new-born baby in my very arms, you rascal! Still, that doesn’t matter: you’ve no reason to remember me all that well! Only you’ve done the right thing in coming back. Well, mother,’ she added, turning to Marya Dmitrievna, ‘have you offered him anything?’

‘I don’t need a thing,’ Lavretsky hastened to answer.

‘Well, at least have some tea, my dear. Good heavens, he’s come from God knows where and they won’t even give him a cup of tea! Liza, go and see about it, quick as you can. I remember that when he was little he had a voracious appetite, and I don’t doubt he still likes his food even now.’

‘My respects to you, Marfa Timofeyevna,’ said Panshin, approaching the agitated old lady from one side and bowing low to her.

‘Forgive me, my good sir,’ responded Marfa Timofeyevna, ‘I didn’t notice you in my state of elation. You’ve begun to look like your mother, the darling child,’ she continued, addressing herself again to Lavretsky, ‘only your nose was your father’s and your father’s it’s remained. Well now, have you come to visit us for long?’

‘I am leaving tomorrow, auntie.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To my own estate, to Vasilyevskoye.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Very well, if it’s to be tomorrow, tomorrow it is. God be with you – you know best. Only you make sure to come and say good-bye.’ The old lady tapped him on the cheek. ‘I didn’t think I’d live to see you back here. And that doesn’t mean I was getting ready to die – oh, no, I’ve got a good ten years to go yet: all we Pestovs are long-livers; your late grandfather used to call us double-lifers. But God alone knew how long you’d go on wasting your time abroad. Well, anyhow, you’re looking fine, really fine. I suppose you can still lift ten stone with one hand as you used to? Your late father, foolish though he was – you must forgive me for saying so – did well to engage that Swiss for you. Do you remember how you used to have fist fights with him? It’s called gymnastics, isn’t it? But I mustn’t go on chattering so; all I’m doing is preventing Mr Panshín’ (she never called him Pánshin, as she should have done) ‘from continuing what he was saying. Besides, it would be better if we had some tea. Let’s go out on the terrace to have it, my dear. We have wonderful cream, not the sort of stuff in your Londons and Parises. Let’s go, let’s go, and you, my dear Fedya, give me your hand. Oh, such a big one. No one’ll fall down with you holding them!’

They all rose and withdrew to the terrace with the exception of Gedeonovsky, who made his way out of the house on the quiet. During the whole of the conversation between Lavretsky and the mistress of the house, Panshin and Marfa Timofeyevna, he had sat in his corner blinking attentively and pouting his lips in childish amazement: now he hurried off to spread news of it all about the town.

On that day, at eleven o’clock in the evening, this is what was happening in Mrs Kalitin’s house. Downstairs, on the threshold of the drawing-room, having seized a suitable moment, Vladimir Nikolaich was saying good-bye to Liza and telling her as he held her by the hand: ‘You know what makes me come here; you know why I am always coming to your house; there’s no point in putting it into words when it’s all so clear.’ Liza said nothing in reply and unsmilingly stared at the floor, slightly raising her eyebrows and blushing, but without withdrawing her hand; meanwhile upstairs, in Marfa Timofeyevna’s room, by the light of a lamp hanging in front of the ancient lacklustre icons, Lavretsky was sitting in an armchair with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands; the old lady, standing in front of him, from time to time silently stroked his hair. He had spent more than an hour with her, after saying good-bye to the mistress of the house; he had said practically nothing to his kind old friend and she had not asked him anything.… For what was there to say, what was there to ask? She literally understood everything, literally felt all the things with which his heart was overflowing.

VIII

FYODOR IVANOVICH LAVRETSKY(we must ask the reader’s permission to break the thread of our story for a while) came of ancient gentry stock. The founder of the Lavretsky line came from Prussia during the reign of Basil the Blind and was granted eight hundred acres of land in the Upper Bezhetsk region. Many of his descendants were numbered among those who served in various posts under princes and men of title in remote provinces, but not one of them rose above chancery rank or amassed a significant fortune. The richest and most remarkable of all the Lavretskys was Fyodor Ivanovich’s great-grandfather Andrey, a cruel, bold, intelligent and crafty man. To this day there is still talk of his arbitrariness, his fiery disposition, his wild generosity and insatiable greed. He was very corpulent and tall in stature, beardless and swarthy of face, spoke with a drawl and seemed half-asleep; but the more quietly he spoke, the more those around him trembled.