"I think, Fedor Ivanovich," said Liza, lowering her voice—she always lowered her voice when she differed from the person she was speaking to; besides, she felt considerably agitated just then—"our happiness upon earth does not depend upon ourselves—"
"It does depend upon ourselves—upon ourselves:" here he seized both her hands. Liza grew pale and looked at him earnestly, but almost with alarm—"at least if we do not ruin our own lives. For some people a love match may turn out unhappily, but not for you, with your calmness of temperament; with your serenity of soul. I do beseech you not to marry without love, merely from a feeling of duty, self-denial, or the like. All that is sheer infidelity, and moreover a matter of calculation—and worse still. Trust my words. I have a right to say this; a right for which I have paid dearly. And if your God—"
At that moment Lavretsky became aware that Lenochka and Shurochka were standing by Liza's side, and were staring at him with intense astonishment. He dropped Liza's hands, saying hastily, "Forgive me," and walked away towards the house.
"There is only one thing I have to ask you," he said, coming back to Liza. "Don't make up your mind directly, but wait a little, and think over what I have said to you. And even if you don't believe my words, but are determined to marry in accordance with the dictates of mere prudence—even, in that case, Mr. Panshine is not the man you ought to marry. He must not be your husband. You will promise me not to be hasty, won't you?"
Liza wished to reply, but she could not utter a single word. Not that she had decided on being "hasty"—but because her heart beat too strongly, and a feeling resembling that of fear impeded her breathing.
XXVIII.
As Lavretsky was leaving the Kalitines' house he met Panshine, with whom he exchanged a cold greeting. Then he went home and shut himself up in his room. The sensations he experienced were such as he had hardly ever known before. Was it long ago that he was in a condition of "peaceful torpor?" Was it long ago that he felt himself, as he had expressed it, "at the very bottom of the river?" What then had changed his condition? What had brought him to the surface, to the light of day? Was the most ordinary and inevitable, though always unexpected, of occurrences—death? Yes. But yet it was not so much his wife's death, his own freedom, that he was thinking about, as this—what answer will Liza give to Panshine?
He felt that in the course of the last three days he had begun to look on Liza with different eyes. He remembered how, when he was returning home and thinking of her in the silence of the night, he said to himself "If!—" This "if," by which at that time he had referred to the past, to the impossible, now applied to an actual state of things, but not exactly such a one as he had then supposed. Freedom by itself was little to him now. "She will obey her mother," he thought. "She will marry Panshine. But even if she refuses him—will it not be just the same as far as I am concerned?" Passing at that moment in front of a looking-glass, he just glanced at his face in it, and then shrugged his shoulders.
Amid such thoughts as these the day passed swiftly by. The evening arrived, and Lavretsky went to the Kalitines. He walked fast until he drew near to the house, but then he slackened his pace. Panshine's carriage was standing before the door. "Well," thought Lavretsky, as he entered the house, "I will not be selfish." No one met him in-doors, and all seemed quiet in the drawing-room. He opened the door, and found that Madame Kalitine was playing piquet with Panshine. That gentleman bowed to him silently, while the lady of the house exclaimed, "Well, this is an unexpected pleasure," and slightly frowned. Lavretsky sat down beside her and began looking at her cards.
"So you can play piquet?" she asked, with a shade of secret vexation in her voice, and then remarked that she had thrown away a wrong card.