Chapter XLII Lisa had written to Lavretsky the day before, to tell him to come in the evening; but he first went home to his lodgings. He found neither his wife nor his daughter at home; from the servants he learned that she had gone with the child to the Kalitins’. This information astounded and maddened him. “Varvara Pavlovna has made up her mind not to let me live at all, it seems,” he thought with a passion of hatred in his heart. He began to walk up and down, and his hands and feet were constantly knocking up against child’s toys, books and feminine belongings; he called Justine and told her to clear away all this “litter.” “Oui, monsieur,” she said with a grimace, and began to set the room in order, stooping gracefully, and letting Lavretsky feel in every movement that she regarded him as an unpolished bear. He looked with aversion at her faded, but still “piquante,” ironical, Parisian face, at her white elbow-sleeves, her silk apron, and little light cap. He sent her away at last, and after long hesitation (as Varvara Pavlovna still did not return) he decided to go to the Kalitins’--not to see Marya Dmitrievna (he would not for anything in the world have gone into that drawing-room, the room where his wife was), but to go up to Marfa Timofyevna’s. He remembered that the back staircase from the servants’ entrance led straight to her apartment. He acted on this plan; fortune favoured him; he met Shurotchka in the court-yard; she conducted him up to Marfa Timofyevna’s. He found her, contrary to her usual habit, alone; she was sitting without a cap in a corner, bent, and her arms crossed over her breast. The old lady was much upset on seeing Lavretsky, she got up quickly and began to move to and fro in the room as if she were looking for her cap. “Ah, it’s you,” she began, fidgeting about and avoiding meeting his eyes, “well, how do you do? Well, well, what’s to be done! Where were you yesterday? Well, she has come, so there, there! Well, it must... one way or another.” Lavretsky dropped into a chair. “Well, sit down, sit down,” the old lady went on. “Did you come straight up-stairs? Well, there, of course. So... you came to see me? Thanks.” The old lady was silent for a little; Lavretsky did not know what to say to her; but she understood him. “Lisa... yes, Lisa was here just now,” pursued Marfa Timofyevna, tying and untying the tassels of her reticule. “She was not quite well. Shurotchka, where are you? Come here, my girl; why can’t you sit still a little? My head aches too. It must be the effect of the singing and music.” “What singing, auntie?”