"And I have burnt all that I used to worship, I worship all that I used to burn--" then he suddenly struck his horse with his whip and and galloped straight away home. On alighting from his horse he gave a final look round, a thankful smile playing involuntarily on his lips. Night--silent, caressing night--lay on the hills and dales. From its fragrant depths afar--whether from heaven or from earth could not be told--there poured a soft and quiet warmth. Lavretsky wished a last farewell to Liza--and hastened up the steps. The next day went by rather slowly, rain setting in early in the morning. Lemm looked askance, and compressed his lips even tighter and tighter, as if he had made a vow never to open them again. When Lavretsky lay down at night he took to bed with him a whole bundle of French newspapers, which had already lain unopened on his table for two or three weeks. He began carelessly to tear open their covers and to skim the contents of their columns, in which, for the matter of that, there was but little that was new. He was just on the point of throwing them aside, when he suddenly bounded out of bed as if something had stung him. In the _feuilleton_ of one of the papers our former acquaintance, M. Jules, communicated to his readers a "painful piece of intelligence." "The fascinating, fair Muscovite," he wrote, "one of the queens of fashion, the ornament of Parisian salons, Madame de Lavretski," had died almost suddenly. And this news, unfortunately but too true, had just reached him, M. Jules. He was, so he continued, he might say, a friend of the deceased-- Lavretsky put on his clothes, went out into the garden, and walked up and down one of its alleys until the break of day. At breakfast, next morning, Lemm asked Lavretsky to let him have horses in order to get back to town. "It is time for me to return to business, that is to lessons," remarked the old man. "I am only wasting my time here uselessly." Lavretsky did not reply at once. He seemed lost in a reverie. "Very good," he said at last; "I will go with you myself."