And Marfa Timofyevna wept bitterly.
Lisa comforted her, wiped away her tears and wept herself, but remained unshaken. In her despair Marfa Timofyevna had recourse to threats: to tell her mother all about it … but that too was of no avail. Only at the old lady’s most earnest entreaties Lisa agreed to put off carrying out her plan for six months. Marfa Timofyevna was obliged to promise in return that if, within six months, she did not change her mind, she would herself help her and would do all she could to gain Marya Dmitrievna’s consent.
In spite of her promise to bury herself in seclusion, at the first approach of cold weather, Varvara Pavlovna, having provided herself with funds, removed to Petersburg, where she took a modest but charming set of apartments, found for her by Panshin; who had left the O⸺ district a little before. During the latter part of his residence in O⸺ he had completely lost Marya Dmitrievna’s good graces; he had suddenly given up visiting her and scarcely stirred from Lavriky. Varvara Pavolvna had enslaved him, literally enslaved him, no other word can describe her boundless, irresistible, unquestioned sway over him.
Lavretsky spent the winter in Moscow; and in the spring of the following year the news reached him that Lisa had taken the veil in the B⸺ convent, in one of the remote parts of Russia.
Epilogue
Eight years had passed by. Once more the spring had come. … But we will say a few words first of the fate of Mihalevitch, Panshin, and Madame Lavretsky—and then take leave of them. Mihalevitch, after long wanderings, has at last fallen in with exactly the right work for him; he has received the position of senior superintendent of a government school. He is very well content with his lot; his pupils adore him, though they mimick him too. Panshin has gained great advancement in rank, and already has a directorship in view; he walks with a slight stoop, caused doubtless by the weight round his neck of the Vladimir cross which has been conferred on him. The official in him has finally gained the ascendency over the artist; his still youngish face has grown yellow, and his hair scanty; he now neither sings nor sketches, but applies himself in secret to literature; he has written a comedy, in the style of a “proverb,” and as nowadays all writers have to draw a portrait of someone or something, he has drawn in it the portrait of a coquette, and he reads it privately to two or three ladies who look kindly upon him. He has, however, not entered upon matrimony, though many excellent opportunities of doing so have presented themselves. For this Varvara Pavlovna was responsible. As for her, she lives constantly at Paris, as in former days. Fedor Ivanitch has given her a promissory note for a large sum, and has so secured immunity from the possibility of her making a second sudden descent upon him. She has grown older and stouter, but is still charming and elegant. Everyone has his ideal. Varvara Pavlovna found hers in the dramatic works of M. Dumas Fils. She diligently frequents the theatres, when consumptive and sentimental “dames aux camélias” are brought on the stage; to be Madame Doche seems to her the height of human bliss; she once declared that she did not desire a better fate for her own daughter. It is to be hoped that fate will spare Mademoiselle Ada from such happiness; from a rosy-cheeked, chubby child she has turned into a weak-chested, pale girl; her nerves are already deranged. The number of Varvara Pavlovna adorers has diminished, but she still has some; a few she will probably retain to the end of her days. The most ardent of them in these later days is a certain Zakurdalo-Skubrinikov, a retired guardsman, a full-bearded man of thirty-eight, of exceptionally vigorous physique. The French habitués of Madame Lavretsky’s salon call him “le gros taureau de l’Ukraine;” Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her fashionable evening reunions, but he is in the fullest enjoyment of her favours.
And so—eight years have passed by. Once more the breezes of spring breathed brightness and rejoicing from the heavens; once more spring was smiling upon the earth and upon men; once more under her caresses everything was turning to blossom, to love, to song. The town of O⸺ had undergone little change in the course of these eight years; but Marya Dmitrievna’s house seemed to have grown younger; its freshly-painted walls gave a bright welcome, and the panes of its open windows were crimson, shining in the setting sun; from these windows the light merry sound of ringing young voices and continual laughter floated into the street; the whole house seemed astir with life and brimming over with gaiety. The lady of the house herself had long been in her tomb; Marya Dmitrievna had died two years after Lisa took the veil, and Marfa Timofyevna had not long survived her niece; they lay side by side in the cemetery of the town. Nastasya Karpovna too was no more; for several years the faithful old woman had gone every week to say a prayer over her friend’s ashes. … Her time had come, and now her bones too lay in the damp earth. But Marya Dmitreivna’s house had not passed into stranger’s hands, it had not gone out of her family, the home had not been broken upon. Lenotchka, transformed into a slim, beautiful young girl, and her betrothed lover—a fair-haired officer of hussars; Marya Dmitrievna’s son, who had just been married in Petersburg and had come with his young wife for the spring to O⸺; his wife’s sister, a schoolgirl of sixteen, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes; Shurotchka, grown up and also pretty, made
