"I remember you perfectly. Yours was even in those days one of the faces which one does not forget. I used to bring you sweetmeats then."
Liza blushed a little, and thought to herself, "What an odd man!"
Lavretsky stopped for a minute in the hall.
Liza entered the drawing-room, in which Panshine's voice and laugh were making themselves heard. He was communicating some piece of town gossip to Maria Dmitrievna and Gedeonovsky, both of whom had by this time returned from the garden, and he was laughly loudly at his own story. At the name of Lavretsky, Maria Dmitrievna became nervous and turned pale, but went forward to receive him.
"How are you? how are you, my dear cousin?" she exclaimed, with an almost lachrymose voice, dwelling on each word she uttered. "How glad I am to see you!"
"How are you, my good cousin?" replied Lavretsky, with a friendly pressure of her outstretched hand. "Is all well with you?"
"Sit clown, sit down, my dear Fedor Ivanovich. Oh, how delighted I am!
But first let me introduce my daughter Liza."
"I have already introduced myself to Lizaveta Mikhailovna," interrupted Lavretsky.
"Monsieur Panshine—Sergius Petrovich Gedeonovsky. But do sit down. I look at you, and, really, I can scarcely trust my eyes. But tell me about your health; is it good?"
"I am quite well, as you can see. And you, too, cousin—if I can say so without bringing you bad luck[A]—you are none the worse for these seven years."
[Footnote A: A reference to the superstition of the "evil eye," still rife among the peasants in Russia. Though it has died out among the educated classes, yet the phrase, "not to cast an evil eye," is still made use of in conversation.]