Lavretzky emerged from the house into the garden: he seated himself on the familiar bench--and in that dear spot, in the face of the house, where he had, on the last occasion, stretched out his hands in vain to the fatal cup in which seethes and sparkles the wine of delight,--he, a solitary, homeless wanderer,--to the sounds of the merry cries of the younger generation which had already superseded him,--took a survey of his life. His heart was sad, but not heavy and not very sorrowful: he had nothing which he had need to regret or be ashamed of. "Play on, make merry, grow on, young forces,"--he thought, and there was no bitterness in his meditations:--"life lies before you, and it will be easier for you to live: you will not be compelled, as we have been, to seek your road, to struggle, to fall, and to rise to your feet again amid the gloom; we have given ourselves great trouble, that we might remain whole,--and how many of us have failed in that!--but you must do deeds, work,--and the blessing of old fellows like me be upon you. But all that remains for me, after to-day, after these emotions, is to make my final reverence to you, and, although with sadness, yet without envy, without any dark feelings, to say, in view of the end, in view of God who is awaiting me: 'Long live solitary old age! Burn thyself out, useless life!'" Lavretzky rose softly, and softly went away; no one noticed him, no one detained him; the merry cries resounded more loudly than ever in the garden behind the green, dense wall of lofty lindens. He seated himself in his tarantas, and ordered the coachman to drive home, and not to press the horses hard. * * * * * "And the end?" perchance some dissatisfied reader will say. "And what became of Lavretzky? of Liza?" But what can one say about people who are still alive, but who have already departed from the earthly arena,--why revert to them? They say that Lavretzky paid a visit to that distant convent where Liza had hidden herself--and saw her. In going from one choir to the other, she passed close to him--passed with the even, hurriedly-submissive gait of a nun--and did not cast a glance at him; only the lashes of the eye which was turned toward him trembled almost imperceptibly, and her haggard face was bowed a little lower than usual--and the fingers of her clasped hands, interlaced with her rosary, were pressed more tightly to one another. What did they both think,--what did they both feel? Who knows? Who shall say? There are moments in life, there are feelings ... we can only indicate them,--and pass by. ----- [15] The trotter as shaft-horse, and the galloping side-horses of a troika.--Translator.