"Lavretsky quietly rose and quietly went away; no one noticed him, no one detained him; the joyous cries sounded more loudly in the garden behind the thick green wall of high lime trees. He took his seat in the carriage and bade the coachman drive home and not hurry the horses.... They say, Lavretsky visited that convent where Liza had hidden herself--that he saw her. Crossing over from choir to choir, she walked close past him, moving with the even, hurried, but meek walk of a nun; and she did not glance at him; only the eyelashes on the side towards him quivered a little, only she bent her emaciated face lower, and the fingers of her clasped hands, entwined with her rosary, were pressed still closer to one another. What were they both thinking? What were they feeling? Who can know? Who can say? There are such moments in life, there are such feelings.... One can but point to them--and pass by." VI "ON THE EVE" CHAPTER VI "ON THE EVE" _On the Eve_, not finished and published till 1859, but projected in 1855, and then laid aside for _Rudin_ and _A House of Gentlefolk_, holds depths of meaning which at first sight lie veiled under the simple harmonious surface. To the English reader _On the Eve_ is a charming picture of a quiet Russian household, with a delicate analysis of a young girl's soul. For Russians, however, on the background is cast the wavering shadow of Russia's national aspirations. Elena, the heroine, as Turgenev tells us, was "a new type in Russian life," when his idea of her first began to trouble his imagination; but "I could not find the hero to whom she, with her vague but strong aspirations for liberty, could give herself." In comparing her with Natalya and Liza the reader will remark that he is allowed to come into even closer spiritual contact with her than with them. When Elena stands before us we know the innermost secrets of her character. Her strength of will, her serious, courageous, proud soul, her capacity for passion, all the play of her idealistic nature troubled by the contradictions, aspirations, and unhappiness that the dawn of love brings to her, all this is conveyed to us by a simple and consummate art. The diary (chap. xvi.) that Elena keeps is in itself a masterly revelation of a young girl's heart; it has never been equalled by any other novelist.