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"Why, I thought you did not think much of Mr. Panshin yourself." Marfa Timofyevna pushed away the glass. "I can't drink; I shall knock my last teeth out if I try to. What's Panshin to do with it? Why bring Panshin in? You had better tell me who has taught you to make appointments at night eh? miss?" Lisa turned pale.
The miller's wife sat down again on the tub. 'Well, Arina Timofyevna, are you still ill? 'Yes. 'What is it? 'My cough troubles me at night. 'The gentleman's asleep, it seems, observed Yermolai after a short silence. 'Don't go to a doctor, Arina; it will be worse if you do. 'Well, I am not going. 'But come and pay me a visit. Arina hung down her head dejectedly.
But she had not had time to recover from her interviews with Panshin and her mother before another storm broke over head, and this time from a quarter from which she would least have expected it. Marfa Timofyevna came into her room, and at once slammed the door after her. The old lady's face was pale, her cap was awry, her eyes were flashing, and her hands and lips were trembling.
Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch laughed. "They certainly wouldn't let you go to Petersburg, even if I were to give you money for the journey.*... But it's time for me to see Marya Timofyevna." And he got up from his chair. "Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, but how about Marya Timofyevna?" "Why, as I told you." "Can it be true?" "You still don't believe it?"
"Well, if you won't entertain him," said Marfa Timofyevna, "who will, poor fellow? I am too old for him, he is too clever for me, and for Nastasya Karpovna he's too old, it's only the quite young men she will look at." "How can I entertain Fedor Ivanitch?" said Lisa. "If he likes, had I not better play him something on the piano?" she added irresolutely.
Lisa was astonished; she had never before seen her sensible and reasonable aunt in such a condition. "A pretty thing, miss," Marfa Timofyevna began in a shaking and broken whisper, "a pretty thing! Who taught you such ways, I should like to know, miss?... Give me some water; I can't speak." "Calm yourself, auntie, what is the matter?" said Lisa, giving her a glass of water.
Lisa bent forward, crimsoning and began to weep, but she did not make Marfa Timofyevna get up, she did not take away her hands, she felt that she had not the right to take them away, that she had not the right to hinder the old lady from expressing her penitence, and her sympathy, from begging forgiveness for what had passed the day before.
Mavriky Nikolaevitch stood in the attitude of one ready to defend all present; Liza was pale, and she gazed fixedly with wide-open eyes at the wild captain. Shatov sat in the same position as before, but, what was strangest of all, Marya Timofyevna had not only ceased laughing, but had become terribly sad.
Ten o'clock struck. Marfa Timofyevna went off up-stairs to her own apartments with Nastasya Karpovna. Lavretsky and Lisa walked across the room, stopped at the open door into the garden, looked into the darkness in the distance and then at one another, and smiled. They could have taken each other's hands, it seemed, and talked to their hearts' content.
It was clear to her now that they all knew something and, at the same time, that they were all scared, that they were evading her questions, and anxious to keep something from her. The footman came in and brought her, on a little silver tray, the cup of coffee she had so specially ordered, but at a sign from her moved with it at once towards Marya Timofyevna.
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