TEMPLE, June 1, 1869.
LIZA.
I.
A beautiful spring day was drawing to a close. High aloft in the clear sky floated small rosy clouds, which seemed never to drift past, but to be slowly absorbed into the blue depths beyond.
At an open window, in a handsome mansion situated in one of the outlying streets of O., the chief town of the government of that name—it was in the year 1842—there were sitting two ladies, the one about fifty years old, the other an old woman of seventy.
The name of the first was Maria Dmitrievna Kalitine. Her husband, who had formerly occupied the post of Provincial Procurator, and who was well known in his day as a good man of business—a man of bilious temperament, confident, resolute, and enterprising—had been dead ten years. He had received a good education, and had studied at the university, but as the family from which he sprang was a poor one, he had early recognized the necessity of making a career for himself and of gaining money.
Maria Dmitrievna married him for love. He was good-looking, he had plenty of sense, and, when he liked, he could be very agreeable. Maria Dmitrievna, whose maiden name was Pestof, lost her parents while she was still a child. She spent several years in an Institute at Moscow, and then went to live with her brother and one of her aunts at Pokrovskoe, a family estate situated fifteen versts from O. Soon afterwards her brother was called away on duty to St. Petersburgh, and, until a sudden death put an end to his career, he kept his aunt and sister with only just enough for them to live upon. Maria Dmitrievna inherited Pokrovskoe, but she did not long reside there. In the second year of her marriage with Kalitine, who had succeeded at the end of a few days in gaining her affections, Pokrovskoe was exchanged for another estate—one of much greater intrinsic value, but unattractive in appearance, and not provided with a mansion. At the same time Kalitine purchased a house in the town of O., and there he and his wife permanently established themselves. A large garden was attached to it, extending in one direction to the fields outside the town, "so that," Kalitine, who was by no means an admirer of rural tranquillity, used to say, "there is no reason why we should go dragging ourselves off into the country." 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. And when he died, after fifteen years of married life, leaving behind him a son and two daughters, Maria Dmitrievna had grown so accustomed to her house and to a town life, that she had no inclination to change her residence.
In her youth Maria Dmitrievna had enjoyed the reputation of being a pretty blonde, and even in her fiftieth year her features were not unattractive, though they had lost somewhat of their fineness and delicacy. She was naturally sensitive and impressionable, rather than actually good-hearted, and even in her years of maturity she continued to behave in the manner peculiar to "Institute girls;" she denied herself no indulgence, she was easily put out of temper, and she would even burst into tears if her habits were interfered with. On the other hand, she was gracious and affable when all her wishes were fulfilled, and when nobody opposed her in any thing. Her house was the pleasantest in the town; and she had a handsome income, the greater part of which was derived from her late husband's earnings, and the rest from her own property. Her two daughters lived with her; her son was being educated in one of the best of the crown establishments at St. Petersburgh.
The old lady who was sitting at the window with Maria Dmitrievna was her father's sister, the aunt with whom she had formerly spent so many lonely years at Pokrovskoe. Her name was Marfa Timofeevna Pestof. She was looked upon as an original, being a woman of an independent character, who bluntly told the truth to every one, and who, although her means were very small, behaved in society just as she would have done had she been rolling in wealth. She never could abide the late Kalitine, and as soon as her niece married him she retired to her own modest little property, where she spent ten whole years in a peasant's smoky hut. Maria Dmitrievna was rather afraid of her. Small in stature, with black hair, a sharp nose, and eyes which even in old age were still keen, Marfa Timofeevna walked briskly, held herself bolt upright, and spoke quickly but distinctly, and with a loud, high-pitched voice. She always wore a white cap, and a white kofta[A] always formed part of her dress.
[Footnote A: A sort of jacket.]
"What is the matter?" she suddenly asked. "What are you sighing about?"
"Nothing," replied Maria Dmitrievna. "What lovely clouds!"
"You are sorry for them, I suppose?"
Maria Dmitrievna made no reply.
"Why doesn't Gedeonovsky come?" continued Marfa Timofeevna, rapidly plying her knitting needles. (She was making a long worsted scarf.) "He would have sighed with you. Perhaps he would have uttered some platitude or other."
"How unkindly you always speak of him! Sergius Petrovich is—a most respectable man."
"Respectable!" echoed the old lady reproachfully.
"And then," continued Maria Dmitrievna, "how devoted he was to my dear husband! Why, he can never think of him without emotion."
"He might well be that, considering that your husband pulled him out of the mud by the ears," growled Marfa Timofeevna, the needles moving quicker than ever under her fingers. "He looks so humble," she began anew after a time. "His head is quite grey, and yet he never opens his mouth but to lie or to slander. And, forsooth, he is a councillor of state! Ah, well, to be sure, he is a priest's son."[A]
[Footnote A: Popovich, or son of a pope; a not over respectful designation in Russia.]
"Who is there who is faultless, aunt? It is true that he has this weakness. Sergius Petrovich has not had a good education, I admit—he cannot speak French—but I beg leave to say that I think him exceedingly agreeable."
"Oh, yes, he fawns on you like a dog. As to his not speaking French, that's no great fault. I am not very strong in the French 'dialect' myself. It would be better if he spoke no language at all; he wouldn't tell lies then. But of course, here he is, in the very nick of time," continued Marfa Timofeevna, looking down the street. "Here comes your agreeable man, striding along. How spindle-shanked he is, to be sure—just like a stork!"
Maria Dmitrievna arranged her curls. Marfa Timofeevna looked at her with a quiet smile.
"Isn't that a grey hair I see, my dear? You should scold Pelagia.
Where can her eyes be?"
"That's just like you, aunt," muttered Maria Dmitrievna, in a tone of vexation, and thrumming with her fingers on the arm of her chair.
"Sergius Petrovich Gedeonovsky!" shrilly announced a rosy-cheeked little Cossack,[A] who suddenly appeared at the door.
[Footnote A: A page attired in a sort of Cossack dress.]
II.
A tall man came into the room, wearing a good enough coat, rather short trousers, thick grey gloves, and two cravats—a black one outside, a white one underneath. Every thing belonging to him was suggestive of propriety and decorum, from his well-proportioned face, with locks carefully smoothed down over the temples, to his heelless and never-creaking boots. He bowed first to the mistress of the house, then to Marfa Timofeevna, and afterwards, having slowly taken off his gloves, he approached Maria Dmitrievna and respectfully kissed her hand twice. After that he leisurely subsided into an easy-chair, and asked, as he smilingly rubbed together the tips of his fingers—
"Is