Lemm uttered this whole speech coherently and with fervour, pacing back and forth, with short strides, in front of the tea-table, and with his eyes flitting over the ground.
"My dearest Maestro!"--exclaimed Lavrétzky all at once:--"it strikes me, that you are in love with my cousin yourself."
"Please,"--he began in an uncertain voice:--"do not jest thus with me. I am not a lunatic."
Lavrétzky felt sorry for the old man; he entreated his forgiveness. After tea, Lemm played him his cantata, and at dinner, being instigated thereto by Lavrétzky himself, he again began to talk about Liza. Lavrétzky listened to him with attention and curiosity.
"What think you, Christofór Feódoritch,"--he said at last--"everything appears to be in order with us now, the garden is in full bloom.... Shall not we invite her here for the day, together with her mother and my old aunt,--hey? Would that be agreeable to you?"
"Invite her,"--he said, almost inaudibly.
"He need not,"--replied the old man, with a half-childlike smile.
Two days later, Feódor Ivánitch set out for the town, to the Kalítins.
He found them all at home, but he did not immediately announce to them his intention: he wished, first, to have a talk alone with Liza. Chance aided him: they were left alone together in the drawing-room. They fell into conversation: she had succeeded in getting used to him,--and, in general, she was not shy of any one. He listened to her, looked her straight in the face, and mentally repeated Lemm's words, and agreed with him. It sometimes happens, that two persons who are already acquainted, but not intimate, suddenly and swiftly draw near to each other in the course of a few minutes,--and the consciousness of this approach is immediately reflected in their glances, in their friendly, quiet smiles, in their very movements. Precisely this is what took place with Lavrétzky and Liza. "So that's what he is like," she thought, gazing caressingly at him; "so that's what thou art like," he said to himself also. And therefore, he was not greatly surprised when she, not without a slight hesitation, however, announced to him, that she had long had it in her heart to say something to him, but had been afraid of annoying him.