If it was not to be, it was not to be,--and that's the end of the matter. I'll set to work, with clenched teeth, and I will command myself to hold my tongue; luckily, it is not the first time I have had to take myself in hand. And why did I run away, why am I sitting here, with my head thrust into a bush, like an ostrich? To be afraid to look catastrophe in the face--is nonsense!--Anton!"--he called loudly,--"order the tarantas to be harnessed up immediately. Yes,"--he meditated once more,--"I must command myself to hold my tongue, I must keep a tight rein on myself."... With such arguments did Lavretzky strive to alleviate his grief; but it was great and powerful; and even Apraxyeya, who had outlived not so much her mind as every feeling, even Apraxyeya shook her head, and sorrowfully followed him with her eyes, when he seated himself in the tarantas, in order to drive to the town. The horses galloped off; he sat motionless and upright, and stared impassively ahead along the road. XLII Liza had written to Lavretzky on the day before, that he was to come to their house in the evening; but he first went up to his own quarters. He did not find either his wife or his daughter at home; from the servants he learned that she had gone with her to the Kalitins'. This news both startled and enraged him. "Evidently, Varvara Pavlovna is determined not to give me a chance to live,"--he thought, with the excitement of wrath in his heart. He began to stride to and fro, incessantly thrusting aside with his feet and hands the child's toys, the books, and the feminine appurtenances which came in his way; he summoned Justine, and ordered her to remove all that "rubbish."--"_Oui, monsieur_,"--said she, with a grimace, and began to put the room in order, gracefully bending, and giving Lavretzky to understand, by every movement, that she regarded him as an unlicked bear. With hatred he watched her worn but still "piquant," sneering, Parisian face, her white cuffs, her silken apron, and light cap. He sent her away, at last, and after long wavering (Varvara Pavlovna still did not return) he made up his mind to betake himself to the Kalitins',--not to Marya Dmitrievna--(not, on any account, would he have entered her drawing-room, that drawing-room where his wife was), but to Marfa Timofeevna; he remembered that a rear staircase from the maids' entrance led straight to her rooms. This is what Lavretzky did. Chance favoured him: in the yard he met Schurotchka; she conducted him to Marfa Timofeevna. He found her, contrary to her wont, alone; she was sitting in a corner, with hair uncovered, bowed over, with her hands clasped in her lap. On perceiving Lavretzky, the old woman was greatly alarmed, rose briskly to her feet, and began to walk hither and yon in the room, as though in search of her cap.