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"O ma tante, how good you are!" cried Varvara Pavlovna, and she raised her handkerchief to her eyes. A page announced the arrival of Gedeonovsky. The old gossip came in bowing and smiling. Marya Dmitrievna presented him to her visitor.
"Une nature poétique," said Maria Dmitrievna, "certainly cannot go cultivating the soil et puis, it is your vocation, Vladimir Nikolaevich, to do every thing en grand." This was too much even for Panshine, who grew confused, and changed the conversation. He tried to turn it on the beauty of the starry heavens, on Schubert's music, but somehow his efforts did not prove successful.
One day Lavretsky, according to his habit, was at the Kalitins'. After an exhaustingly hot day, such a lovely evening had set in that Marya Dmitrievna, in spite of her aversion to a draught, ordered all the windows and doors into the garden to be thrown open, and declared that she would not play cards, that it was a sin to play cards in such weather, and one ought to enjoy nature.
Panshine made no other reply than a look, and bowed politely to Maria Dmitrievna, but did not kiss her hand. She introduced him to Varvara Pavlovna. He drew back a pace, bowed to her with the same politeness and with an added expression of respectful grace, and then took a seat at the card-table. The game soon came to an end.
"Well, Marya Dmitrievna," observed Lavretsky, "if I may be inquisitive: I am told that Varvara Pavlovna has been singing in your drawing-room; did she sing during the time of her penitence, or how was it?" "Ah, I wonder you are not ashamed to talk like that! She sang and played the piano only to do me a kindness, because I positively entreated, almost commanded her to do so.
Then the strains of the count's household band were replaced by the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on her left, the other lady visitors were farther down.
And do you know I am surprised how well you speak Russian. C'est etonnant." Varvara Pavlovna sighed. "I have been too long abroad, Marya Dmitrievna, I know that; but my heart has always been Russian, and I have not forgotten my country." "Ah, ah; that is good. Fedor Ivanitch did not, however, expect you at all. Yes; you may trust my experience, la patri avant tout.
Maria Dmitrievna often secretly regretted her beautiful Pokrovskoe, with its joyous brook, its sweeping meadows, and its verdant woods, but she never opposed her husband in any thing, having the highest respect for his judgment and his knowledge of the world.
"As for me, I thought I was like my maid, Nastasia, and had no words 'of my own. She said one day to her betrothed, 'You will be sure to be bored with me. You talk to me so beautifully about every thing, but I have no words of my own." "Heaven be praised!" thought Lavretsky. In the meantime the evening had arrived, and Maria Dmitrievna evinced a desire to return home.
Marya Dmitrievna did not know how to express her delight; she several times tried to send for Lisa. Gedeonovsky, too, was at a loss for words, and could only nod his head, but all at once he gave an unexpected yawn, and hardly had time to cover his mouth with his! hand.
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