"Why?"--Maria Dmitrievna again had recourse to her Eau-de-Cologne and drank some water--"why I say this to you, Fedor Ivanich, is because--you see I am one of your relations, I take a deep interest in you. I know your heart is excellent. Mark my words, _mon cousin_--at all events I am a woman of experience, and I do not speak at random. Forgive, do forgive your wife!". (Maria Dmitrievna's eyes suddenly filled with tears.) "Only think--youth, inexperience, and perhaps also a bad example--hers was not the sort of mother to put her in the right way. Forgive her, Fedor Ivanich! She has been punished enough." The tears flowed down Maria Dmitrievna's cheeks. She did not wipe them away; she was fond of weeping. Meanwhile Lavretsky sat as if on thorns. "Good God!" he thought, "what torture this is! What a day this has been for me!" "You do not reply," Maria Dmitrievna recommenced: "how am I to understand you? Is it possible that you can be so cruel? No, I cannot believe that. I feel that my words have convinced you. Fedor Ivanich, God will reward you for your goodness! Now from my hands receive your wife!" Lavretsky jumped up from his chair scarcely knowing what he was doing. Maria Dmitrievna had risen also, and had passed rapidly to the other side of the screen, from behind which she brought out Madame Lavretsky. Pale, half lifeless, with downcast eyes, that lady seemed as if she had surrendered her whole power of thinking or willing for herself, and had given herself over entirely into the hands of Maria Dmitrievna. Lavretsky recoiled a pace. "You have been there all this time!" he exclaimed. "Don't blame her," Maria Dmitrievna hastened to say. "She wouldn't have stayed for any thing; but I made her stay; I put her behind the screen. She declared that it would make you angrier than ever; but I wouldn't even listen to her. I know you better than she does. Take then from my hands your wife! Go to him, Varvara; have no fear; fall at your husband's feet" (here she gave Varvara's arm a pull), "and may my blessing--" "Stop, Maria Dmitrievna!" interposed Lavretsky, in a voice shaking with emotion. "You seem to like sentimental scenes." (Lavretsky was not mistaken; from her earliest school-days Maria Dmitrievna had always been passionately fond of a touch of stage effect.) "They may amuse you, but to other people they may prove very unpleasant. However, I am not going to talk to you. In _this_ scene you do not play the leading part."