A Nobleman's Nest Part 5

--Translator.

X

Ivan Petrovitch returned to Russia an Anglomaniac. His closely-clipped hair, starched neckcloth, long-skirted, yellowish-gray overcoat with a mult.i.tude of capes, his sour expression of visage, a certain harshness and also indifference of demeanour, his manner of talking through his teeth, a wooden, abrupt laugh, the absence of smiles, a conversation exclusively political and politico-economical, a pa.s.sion for b.l.o.o.d.y roast beef and port wine,--everything about him fairly reeked of Great Britain; he seemed thoroughly imbued with her spirit. But--strange to say! while he had turned into an Anglomaniac, Ivan Petrovitch had simultaneously become a patriot; at all events, he called himself a patriot, although he was but badly acquainted with Russia, was not wedded to a single Russian habit, and expressed himself queerly in Russian: in ordinary conversation, his speech was clumsy and pithless, studded all over with Gallicisms; but no sooner did the discussion touch upon important topics, than Ivan Petrovitch instantly brought out such expressions as: "to show new proofs of self-zeal,"[4] "that doth not agree with the nature of the circ.u.mstances," and so forth. Ivan Petrovitch brought with him several ma.n.u.script plans touching the organisation and amelioration of the empire; he was extremely dissatisfied with everything he saw,--the absence of system, in particular, stirred up his bile. On meeting his sister, he announced to her, with his very first words, that he intended to introduce radical reforms, that henceforth everything on his estate should proceed upon a new system. Glafira Petrovna made no reply to Ivan Petrovitch, but merely set her teeth, and said to herself: "And what is to become of me?"--But when she reached the country estate, in company with her brother and her nephew, she speedily regained her composure. In the house, several changes actually took place: the female hangers-on and drones were subjected to instant expulsion; among their number two old women suffered, one who was blind and the other crippled with paralysis, also a decrepit Major of the Otchakoff period, who, on account of his truly astonishing voracity, was fed on nothing but black bread and lentils. A decree was also issued, that the former guests were not to be received: they were superseded by a distant neighbour, a fair-haired, scrofulous baron, a very well educated and very stupid man.

New furniture from Moscow made its appearance; cuspidors, and bells, and wash-stands were introduced and they began to serve the noon breakfast differently; foreign wines took the place of vodka and homemade liqueurs; new liveries were made for the servants; the motto, "in recto virtus," was added to the family coat of arms.... But, in reality, Glafira's power was not diminished: all the disburs.e.m.e.nts and purchases depended on her, as before; the imported Alsatian valet made an attempt to vie with her--and lost his place, in spite of the fact that his master took his side. So far as the management, the administration, of the estates was concerned (Glafira Petrovna entered into all these matters), despite Ivan Petrovitch's frequently expressed intention "to infuse new life into this chaos," everything remained as of yore, except that, here and there, the quit-rents were augmented, and the husbandry-service became more oppressive, and the peasants were forbidden to apply directly to Ivan Petrovitch. The patriot heartily despised his fellow-citizens. Ivan Petrovitch's system was applied, in its full force, to Fedya only: his education actually was subjected to "radical reform"; his father had exclusive charge of it.

[4] That is to say, he used such fundamentally national words as occur only in the Old Church Slavonic, well-nigh untranslatable here, also employed upon occasions of ceremony.--Translator.

XI

Up to the time of Ivan Petrovitch's return from abroad, Fedya had been, as we have already said, in the hands of Glafira Petrovna. He was less than eight years of age when his mother died, he had not seen her every day, and he had loved her pa.s.sionately: the memory of her, of her pale and gentle face, her melancholy glances and timid caresses, had forever imprinted itself upon his heart; but he dimly comprehended her position in the house; he was conscious that between him and her there existed a barrier which she dared not and could not overthrow. He shunned his father, and Ivan Petrovitch never petted him; his grandfather occasionally stroked his head, and permitted him to kiss his hand, but he called him and considered him a little fool. After the death of Malanya Sergyeevna, his aunt took him in hand definitively. Fedya feared her,--feared her bright, keen eyes, her sharp voice; he dared not utter a sound in her presence; it sometimes happened that when he had merely fidgeted on his chair, she would scream out: "Where art thou going? sit still!" On Sundays, after the Liturgy, he was permitted to play,--that is to say, he was given a thick book, a mysterious book, the work of a certain Maximovitch-Ambodik, ent.i.tled: "Symbols and Emblems." This book contained about a thousand in part very puzzling pictures, with equally puzzling explanations in five languages. Cupid, with a plump, naked body, played a great part in these pictures. To one of them, labelled "Saffron and Rainbow," was appended the explanation: "The action of this is great ..."; opposite another, which represented "A Heron flying with a violet blossom in his mouth," stood the inscription: "All of them are known unto thee." Cupid and a bear licking its cub was designated as: "Little by little." Fedya contemplated these pictures; he was familiar with the most minute details of them all; some of them--always the same ones--set him to thinking and excited his imagination; he knew no other diversions.

When the time came to teach him languages and music, Glafira Petrovna hired, for a paltry sum, an elderly spinster, a Swede, with frightened, hare-like eyes, who spoke French and German indifferently, played the piano after a fashion, and, in addition, knew how to salt cuc.u.mbers in first-cla.s.s style. In the society of this instructress, of his aunt, and of an old chambermaid, Vasilievna, Fedya pa.s.sed four whole years. He used to sit in the corner with his "Emblems"--and sit ... and sit ...

while the low-ceiled room smelled of geraniums, a solitary tallow candle burned dimly, a cricket chirped monotonously, as though it were bored, the little clock ticked hastily on the wall, a mouse stealthily scratched and gnawed behind the wall-hangings, and the three old maids, like the Parcae, moved their knitting-needles silently and swiftly to and fro, the shadows cast by their hands now flitted, again quivered strangely in the semi-darkness, and strange thoughts, also half-dark, swarmed in the child's head. No one would have called Fedya an interesting child: he was quite pallid, but fat, awkwardly built, and clumsy,--"a regular peasant," according to Glafira Petrovna's expression; the pallor would speedily have disappeared from his face if he had been permitted to go out of doors more frequently. He studied tolerably well, although he frequently idled; he never wept; on the other hand, at times a fierce obstinacy came over him; then no one could do anything with him. Fedya loved none of the persons around him.... Woe to the heart which loves not in its youth!

Thus did Ivan Petrovitch find him, and without loss of time he set to work to apply his system to him.--"I want to make a man of him first of all, _un homme_,"--he said to Glafira Petrovna:--"and not only a man, but a Spartan." Ivan Petrovitch began the execution of his intention by dressing his son in Highland garb: the lad of twelve began to go about with bare knees, and with a c.o.c.k's feather in his crush-cap; the Swede was superseded by a young Swiss man, who had learned gymnastics to perfection; music, as an occupation unworthy of a man, was banished forever; the natural sciences, international law, mathematics, the carpenter's trade after the advice of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and heraldry, for the maintenance of knightly sentiments--these were the things wherewith the future "man" was to occupy himself; he was waked at four o'clock in the morning, was immediately drenched with cold water, and made to run around a tall pillar, at the end of a rope; he ate once a day, one dish, rode on horseback, practised firing a cross-bow; on every convenient opportunity he exercised his strength of will, after the model of his parent, and every evening he noted down in a special book an account of the past day and his impressions; and Ivan Petrovitch, on his side, wrote him precepts in French, in which he called him _mon fils_, and addressed him as _vous_. In Russian Fedya called his father "thou," but he dared not sit down in his presence. The "system"

bewildered the boy, introduced confusion into his head, squeezed it; but, on the other hand, the new mode of life acted beneficially on his health: at first he caught a fever, but soon recovered, and became a fine, dashing fellow. His father was proud of him, and called him, in his strange jargon: "A son of nature, my product." When Fedya reached the age of sixteen, Ivan Petrovitch regarded it as his duty to instil into him betimes scorn for the fair s.e.x,--and the youthful Spartan, with timidity in his soul, with the first down upon his lips, full of vigour, strength, and blood, attempted to appear indifferent, cold, and harsh.

Meanwhile, time pa.s.sed and pa.s.sed. Ivan Petrovitch spent the greater part of the year at Lavriki (that was the name of his paternal estate), and in the winters he went alone to Moscow, stopped at an inn, diligently frequented the club, orated and set forth his plans in drawing-rooms, and conducted himself more like an Anglomaniac, a grumbler, and a statesman than ever. But the year 1825 arrived, and brought with it much woe.[5]

Ivan Petrovitch's intimate friends and acquaintances were subjected to severe trials. Ivan Petrovitch made haste to retreat to his country estate, and locked himself up in his house. Another year elapsed, and Ivan Petrovitch suddenly grew feeble, weakened, declined, his health deserted him. A free-thinker--he took to going to church, and to ordering services of prayer; a European--he began to steam himself at the bath, to dine at two o'clock, to go to bed at nine, to fall asleep to the chatter of the aged butler; a statesman--he burned all his plans, all his correspondence, trembled before the governor, and fidgeted in the presence of the rural chief of police; a man with a will of iron--he whimpered and complained when an abscess broke out on him, when he was served with a plate of cold soup. Glafira Petrovna again reigned over everything in the house; again clerks, village bailiffs, common peasants, began to creep through the back entrance to the "ill-tempered old hag,"--that was what the house-servants called her. The change in Ivan Petrovitch gave his son a great shock; he was already in his nineteenth year, and had begun to reason and to free himself from the weight of the hand which oppressed him. He had noticed, even before this, a discrepancy between his father's words and deeds, between his broad and liberal theories and his harsh, petty despotism; but he had not antic.i.p.ated such a sudden break. The inveterate egoist suddenly revealed himself at full length. Young Lavretzky was getting ready to go to Moscow, to prepare himself for the university,--when an unforeseen, fresh calamity descended upon the head of Ivan Petrovitch: he became blind, and that hopelessly, in one day.

Not trusting in the skill of Russian physicians, he began to take measures to obtain permission to go abroad. It was refused. Then he took his son with him, and for three whole years he roamed over Russia, from one doctor to another, incessantly journeying from town to town and driving the physicians, his son, his servants, to despair by his pusillanimity and impatience. He returned to Lavriki a perfect rag, a tearful and capricious child. Bitter days ensued, every one endured much at his hands. Ivan Petrovitch calmed down only while he was eating his dinner; he had never eaten so greedily, nor so much; all the rest of the time he never gave himself or others any peace. He prayed, grumbled at fate, railed at himself, reviled politics, his system,--reviled everything which he had made his boast and upon which he had prided himself, everything which he had held up as an example for his son; he insisted that he believed in nothing, and then prayed again; he could not bear to be left alone for a single moment, and demanded from the members of his household, that they should sit uninterruptedly, day and night, beside his arm-chair, and amuse him with stories, which he incessantly interrupted with the exclamation: "You are inventing the whole of it--what trash!"

Glafira Petrovna had a particularly hard time; he positively could not get along without her--and to the end she complied with all the invalid's whims, although sometimes she could not make up her mind on the instant to answer him, lest the sound of her voice should betray her inward wrath. In this manner he lingered on two years, and died in the beginning of May, when he had been carried out upon the balcony, in the sunshine.

"Glashka, Glashka! the bouillon, the bouillon, you old foo ..." lisped his stiffening tongue, and without finishing the last word, it became silent forever. Glafira Petrovna, who had just s.n.a.t.c.hed the cup of bouillon from the hands of the butler, stopped short, stared her brother in the face, crossed herself slowly and broadly, and withdrew in silence; and his son, who was present, said nothing, either, but leaned against the railing of the balcony, and gazed for a long time into the garden, all fragrant and verdant, all glittering in the rays of the golden sun of spring. He was twenty-three years old; how terribly, how imperceptibly fast those three and twenty years had sped past!... Life was opening before him.

[5] At the accession to the throne of Nicholas I.--Translator.

XII

After having buried his father, and entrusted to the immutable Glafira Petrovna the management of the farming and the oversight over the clerks, young Lavretzky betook himself to Moscow, whither he was drawn by an obscure but powerful sentiment. He recognised the defects of his education, and intended to repair omissions, so far as possible. During the last five years, he had read a great deal, and had seen some things; many thoughts had been seething in his brain; any professor might have envied him some of his knowledge, but, at the same time, he did not know much with which every gymnasium lad has long been familiar. The Anglomaniac had played his son an evil trick; his whimsical education had borne its fruits. For long years, he had abased himself before his father without a question; but when, at last, he had divined him, the deed was done, the habits had become rooted. He did not know how to make acquaintance with people: at twenty-three years of age, with an indomitable thirst for love in his shame-stricken heart, he did not dare to look a single woman in the eye. With his clear, solid but somewhat heavy sense, with his inclination to stubbornness, contemplation, and indolence, he ought, from his earliest years, to have been cast into the whirlpool of life, but he had been kept in an artificial isolation....

And now the charmed circle was broken, yet he continued to stand in one spot, locked up, tightly compressed in himself. It was ridiculous, at his age, to don a student's uniform; but he was not afraid of ridicule: his Spartan training had served its turn to this extent at least, that it had developed in him scorn for other people's remarks,--and so, unabashed, he donned the uniform of a student. He entered the physico-mathematical department. Healthy, rosy-cheeked, with a well-grown beard, taciturn, he produced a strange impression upon his comrades; they did not suspect that in this surly man, who punctually drove to the lectures in a roomy country sledge and pair, there was concealed almost a child. He seemed to them some sort of wise pedant; they did not need him and did not seek his society, he avoided them. In the course of the first two years which he spent at the university, he came into close contact with only one student, from whom he took lessons in Latin. This student, Mikhalevitch by name, an enthusiast and a poet, sincerely loved Lavretzky, and quite innocently became the cause of an important change in his fate.

One day, at the theatre (Motchaloff was then at the height of his fame, and Lavretzky never missed a performance), he saw a young girl in a box of the _bel-etage_,--and, although no woman ever pa.s.sed his surly figure without causing his heart to quiver, it never yet had beaten so violently. With her elbows resting on the velvet of the box, the young girl sat motionless; alert, young life sparkled in every feature of her pretty, round, dark-skinned face; an elegant mind was expressed in the beautiful eyes which gazed attentively and softly from beneath slender brows, in the swift smile of her expressive lips, in the very att.i.tude of her head, her arms, her neck; she was charmingly dressed. Beside her sat a wrinkled, sallow woman, forty-five years of age, with a toothless smile on her constrainedly-anxious and empty countenance, and in the depths of the box an elderly man was visible, wearing an ample coat and a tall neckcloth, with an expression of feeble stateliness and a certain obsequious suspicion in his little eyes, with dyed moustache and side-whiskers, an insignificant, huge forehead, and furrowed cheeks,--a retired General, by all the signs. Lavretzky could not take his eyes from the young girl who had startled him; all at once, the door of the box opened, and Mikhalevitch entered. The appearance of that man, almost his sole acquaintance in all Moscow,--his appearance in the company of the only young girl who had engrossed his whole attention, seemed to Lavretzky strange and significant. As he continued to gaze at the box, he noticed that all the persons in it treated Mikhalevitch like an old friend. The performance on the stage ceased to interest Lavretzky; Motchaloff himself, although that evening he was "in high feather," did not produce upon him the customary impression. In one very pathetic pa.s.sage, Lavretzky involuntarily glanced at his beauty: she was bending her whole body forward, her cheeks were aflame; under the influence of his persistent gaze, her eyes, which were riveted on the stage, turned slowly, and rested upon him.... All night long, those eyes flitted before his vision. At last, the artificially erected dam had given way: he trembled and burned, and on the following day he betook himself to Mikhalevitch. From him he learned, that the beauty's name was Varvara Pavlovna Korobyn; that the old man and woman who had sat with her in the box were her father and mother, and that he himself, Mikhalevitch, had made their acquaintance a year previously, during his stay in the suburbs of Moscow, "on contract service" (as tutor) with Count N. The enthusiast expressed himself in the most laudatory manner concerning Varvara Pavlovna--"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, with the impetuous harmony in his voice which was peculiar to him,--"that young girl is an amazing, a talented being, an artist in the genuine sense of the word, and extremely amiable to boot."--Perceiving from Lavretzky's question what an impression Varvara Pavlovna had produced upon him, he himself proposed to introduce him to her, adding that he was quite at home in their house; that the General was not at all a proud man, and the mother was so stupid that she all but sucked a rag. Lavretzky blushed, muttered something unintelligible, and fled. For five whole days he wrestled with his timidity; on the sixth day the young Spartan donned a new uniform, and placed himself at the disposition of Mikhalevitch, who being his own valet, confined himself to brushing his hair,--and the two set out for the Korobyns'.

XIII

The father of Varvara Pavlovna, Pavel Petrovitch Korobyn, Major-General on the retired list, had spent his whole life in Petersburg, in the service; had borne the reputation, in his youth, of being an accomplished dancer and officer of the line; found himself, owing to poverty, the adjutant of two or three ill-favoured Generals; married the daughter of one of them, receiving twenty-five thousand rubles as her dowry; acquired, in its finest details, the love of drills and reviews; toiled, and toiled hard, for his livelihood, and at last, at the end of twenty years, attained to the rank of General, and received a regiment. It was time for him to rest, and without delay to establish his prosperity on a firm basis; this was what he calculated on doing, but he managed the matter somewhat incautiously: he hit upon a new method of putting the coin of the realm into circulation,--the method proved to be a capital one, but he did not get out in season: a complaint was made against him; a more than unpleasant, an ugly scandal ensued. The General managed to wriggle out of the scandal, after a fashion, but his career was ruined: he was advised to resign. He hung about in Petersburg for a couple of years longer in the hope that some snug little place would get stranded on him: but the place did not strand on him, and his daughter came out of the government school, and his expenses increased every day.... Repressing his wrath, he decided to remove to Moscow for the sake of economy, hired a tiny, low-roofed house on Old Stable Street, with a coat of arms a fathom tall on the roof, and began to live the life of a Moscow General on the retired list, spending 2750 rubles a year. Moscow is a hospitable town, glad to welcome everybody who comes along, and more particularly, Generals; Pavel Petrovitch's heavy figure, which yet was not lacking in military mien, speedily began to make its appearance in the best drawing-rooms of Moscow. His bald nape, with tufts of dyed hair, and the dirty ribbon of the order of St. Anna on a neckcloth the hue of the raven's wing, began to be well known to all the easily bored and pallid young men who morosely hovered around the gambling-tables while dancing was in progress. Pavel Petrovitch understood how to place himself in society; he talked little, but, by force of old habit, through his nose,--of course, not with individuals belonging to the higher ranks; he played cards cautiously, at home he ate sparingly, but when visiting he ate for six. Concerning his wife, there is hardly anything to say: her name was Kalliope Karlovna; a tear oozed from her left eye, by virtue of which Kalliope Karlovna (she was, moreover, of German extraction) regarded herself as a woman of sentiment; she lived in constant fear of something, never seemed to have had quite enough to eat, and wore tight velvet gowns, a turban, and dull bracelets of hollow metal. Varvara Pavlovna, the only daughter of Pavel Petrovitch and Kalliope Karlovna, had just pa.s.sed her seventeenth birthday when she came out of the * * * Inst.i.tute, where she had been considered, if not the greatest beauty, certainly the cleverest girl and the best musician, and where she had received the _chiffre_;[6] she was not yet nineteen when Lavretzky beheld her for the first time.

[6] In the Government Inst.i.tutes for girls, the chief prize is the Empress's initial, in jewels.--Translator.

XIV

The legs of the Spartan gave way beneath him when Mikhalevitch conducted him into the rather shabbily furnished drawing-room of the Korobyns, and presented him to the master and mistress of the house. But the feeling of timidity which had taken possession of him promptly disappeared: in the General the kindliness of nature innate in all Russians was greatly increased by that special sort of courtesy which is peculiar to all besmirched people; the Generaless soon disappeared, somehow; as for Varvara Pavlovna, she was so calm and self-possessedly amiable, that any one would immediately have felt himself at home in her presence; moreover, from the whole of her enchanting person, from her smiling eyes, from her innocently-sloping shoulders and faintly-rosy hands, from her light and, at the same time, rather languid gait, from the very sound of her voice, which was low and sweet,--there breathed forth an insinuating charm, as intangible as a delicate perfume, a soft and as yet modest intoxication, something which it is difficult to express in words, but which touched and excited,--and, of course, excited something which was not timidity. Lavretzky turned the conversation on the theatre, on the performance of the preceding evening; she immediately began, herself, to speak of Motchaloff, and did not confine herself merely to exclamations and sighs, but uttered several just and femininely-penetrating remarks concerning his acting. Mikhalevitch alluded to music; without any affectation she seated herself at the piano, and played with precision several mazurkas by Chopin, which had only just come into fashion. The dinner-hour arrived; Lavretzky made a motion to depart, but they kept him; at table, the General treated him to good claret, for which the General's lackey had galloped in a cab to Depre's. Late at night, Lavretzky returned home, and sat for a long time, without undressing, his eyes covered with his hand, in dumb enchantment. It seemed to him, that only now had he come to understand why life was worth living; all his hypotheses, his intentions, all that nonsense and rubbish, vanished instantaneously; his whole soul was merged in one sentiment, in one desire, in the desire for happiness, possession, love, the sweet love of woman. From that day forth, he began to go often to the Korobyns'. Six months later, he declared himself to Varvara Pavlovna, and offered her his hand. His proposal was accepted; the General had long since, almost on the eve of his first visit, inquired of Mikhalevitch how many serfs he, Lavretzky, had; and Varvara Pavlovna also, who, during the whole period of the young man's courtship and even at the moment of his declaration, had preserved her habitual tranquillity and clearness of soul,--Varvara Pavlovna also was well aware that her lover was rich; and Kalliope Karlovna said to herself: "Meine Tochter macht eine schone Partie"--and bought herself a new turban.

XV

So his proposal was accepted, but on certain conditions. In the first place, Lavretzky must immediately leave the university: who marries a student? and what a dreadful idea,--for a landed proprietor, rich, and twenty-six years old, to take lessons like a school-boy! In the second place, Varvara Pavlovna took upon herself the labour of ordering and purchasing the trousseau, even of choosing the bridegroom's gifts. She had a great deal of practical sense, much taste, much love for comfort, and a great knack for securing for herself that comfort. This knack particularly astonished Lavretzky when, immediately after the wedding, he and his wife set out in a commodious carriage, which she had bought, for Lavriki. How everything which surrounded him had been planned, foreseen, provided for by Varvara Pavlovna! What charming travelling requisites, what fascinating toilet-boxes and coffeepots, made their appearance in divers snug nooks, and how prettily Varvara Pavlovna herself boiled the coffee in the mornings! But Lavretzky was not then in a mood for observation: he was in a beatific state, he was intoxicating himself with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child.... And he was as innocent as a child, that young Alcides. Not in vain did witchery exhale from the whole being of his young wife; not in vain did she promise to the senses the secret luxury of unknown delights; she fulfilled more than she had promised. On arriving at Lavriki, in the very hottest part of the summer, she found the house dirty and dark, the servants ridiculous and antiquated, but she did not find it necessary even to hint at this to her husband. If she had been making preparations to settle down at Lavriki, she would have made over everything about it, beginning, of course, with the house; but the idea of remaining in that G.o.d-forsaken corner of the steppes never entered her mind for one moment; she lived in it, as though camping out, gently enduring all the inconveniences and making amusing jests over them. Marfa Timofeevna came to see her nursling; Varvara Pavlovna took a great liking for her, but she did not take a liking for Varvara Pavlovna. Neither did the new mistress of the house get on well with Glafira Petrovna; she would have left her in peace, but old Korobyn wanted to feather his nest from his son-in-law's affairs; "it was no shame, even for a General," said he, "to manage the estate of so near a relative." It must be a.s.sumed that Pavel Petrovitch would not have disdained to busy himself with the estate of an entire stranger. Varvara Pavlovna conducted her attack in a very artful manner: without thrusting herself forward, and still, to all appearances, wholly absorbed in the felicity of the honeymoon, in quiet country life, in music and reading, she little by little drove Glafira Petrovna to such a state, that one morning the latter rushed like a madwoman into Lavretzky's study, and, hurling her bunch of keys on the table, announced that it was beyond her power to occupy herself with the housekeeping, and that she did not wish to remain in the country. Having been properly prepared in advance, Lavretzky immediately consented to her departure.--Glafira Petrovna had not expected this. "Very well,"

said she, and her eyes grew dark,--"I see that I am not wanted here! I know who it is that is driving me hence--from my native nest. But do thou remember my words, nephew: thou shalt never be able to build thyself a nest anywhere, thou must wander all thy life. That is my legacy to thee."--That very day she departed to her own little estate, and a week later General Korobyn arrived, and with agreeable melancholy in his gaze and movements, took the management of the entire estate into his hands.

In September, Varvara Petrovna carried her husband off to Petersburg. She spent two winters in Petersburg (they removed to Tzarskoe Selo for the summer), in a beautiful, light, elegantly furnished apartment; they made many acquaintances in middle-cla.s.s and even in the higher circles of society, they went out and received a great deal, and gave most charming musical and dancing parties. Varvara Pavlovna attracted guests as a flame attracts moths. Such a dissipated life did not altogether please Feodor Ivanitch. His wife advised him to enter the service; owing to his father's old memories, and his own conceptions, he would not serve, but to please his wife he remained in Petersburg. But he speedily divined that no one prevented his isolating himself, that it was not for nothing that he had the quietest and most comfortable study in all Petersburg, that his solicitous wife was even ready to help him to isolate himself,--and from that time forth all went splendidly. Once more he took up his own education, which, in his opinion, was unfinished, once more he began to read, he even began to study the English language. It was strange to see his mighty, broad-shouldered figure, eternally bent over his writing-table, his full, hairy, ruddy face half concealed by the pages of a dictionary or an exercise-book. Every morning he spent in work, dined capitally (Varvara Pavlovna was an excellent housewife), and in the evening he entered an enchanting, fragrant, brilliant world, all populated with young, merry faces,--and the central point of that world was also the zealous hostess, his wife. She gladdened him with the birth of a son, but the poor boy did not live long: he died in the spring, and in the summer, by the advice of the physicians, Lavretzky took his wife abroad, to the baths. Diversion was indispensable to her, after such a bereavement, and her health required a warm climate. They spent the summer and autumn in Germany and Switzerland, and in the winter, as might have been expected, they went to Paris. In Paris Varvara Pavlovna blossomed out like a rose, and managed to build a little nest for herself as promptly and as adroitly as in Petersburg. She found an extremely pretty apartment, in one of the quiet but fashionable Paris streets; she made her husband such a dressing-gown as he had never owned before; she hired a trim maid, a capital cook, a smart footman; she got an enchanting carriage, a charming little piano. A week had not pa.s.sed before she crossed a street, wore her shawl, opened her parasol, and put on her gloves in a style equal to that of the purest-blooded Parisienne. And she soon provided herself with acquaintances. At first, only Russians went to her house, then Frenchmen began to make their appearance, very amiable, courteous, unmarried, with beautiful manners and euphonious family names; they all talked fast and much, bowed with easy grace, and screwed up their eyes in a pleasing way; all of them had white teeth which gleamed beneath rosy lips,--and how they did understand the art of smiling! Every one of them brought his friends, and "la belle Madame de Lavretzki" soon became known from the Chaussee d'Antin to the Rue de Lille. In those days (this took place in 1836), that tribe of feuilleton and chronicle writers, which now swarm everywhere, like ants in an ant-hill which has been cut open, had not multiplied; but even then, a certain M----r Jules presented himself in Varvara Pavlovna's salon, a gentleman of insignificant appearance, with a scandalous reputation, insolent and base, like all duellists and beaten men. This M--r Jules was extremely repulsive to Varvara Pavlovna, but she received him because he scribbled for various journals, and incessantly alluded to her, calling her now _"Mme. de L * * * tzki_," now "_Mme. de * * * cette grande dame Russe si distinguee, qui demeure rue de P._"; narrating to all the world, that is to say, to a few hundred subscribers, who cared nothing whatever about "_Mme. de L * * * tzki_," how that pretty and charming lady was a real Frenchwoman in mind (_une vraie francaise par l'esprit_),--there is no higher encomium for the French,--what a remarkable musician she was, and how wonderfully she waltzed (Varvara Pavlovna, in reality, did waltz in such a manner as to draw all hearts after the hem of her light, fluttering gown) ... in a word, he spread her fame throughout the world,--and a.s.suredly that is agreeable, say what you will. Mlle. Mars had already left the stage, and Mlle. Rachel had not yet made her appearance; nevertheless, Varvara Pavlovna diligently frequented the theatres. She went into ecstasies over Italian music, and laughed at the ruins of Odra, yawned decorously at the Comedie Francaise, and wept at the acting of Mme. Dorval in some ultra-romantic melodrama or other; but, chief of all, Liszt played a couple of times at her house, and was so nice, so simple--it was delightful! In such pleasant sensations pa.s.sed a winter, at the end of which Varvara Pavlovna was even presented at Court. Feodor Ivanitch, on his side, was not bored, although life, at times, weighed heavily on his shoulders,--heavily, because it was empty. He read the newspapers, he listened to lectures at the Sorbonne and the College de France, he kept track of the debates in parliament, he undertook the translation of a well-known scientific work on irrigation. "I am not wasting time,"--he said to himself,--"all this is useful; but next winter I must, without fail, return to Russia and set to work." It is difficult to say, whether he was clearly conscious in what that work consisted, and G.o.d knows whether he would have succeeded in returning to Russia for the winter,--in the meantime, he went with his wife to Baden-Baden.... An unexpected event destroyed all his plans.

XVI

One day, on entering Varvara Pavlovna's boudoir in her absence, Lavretzky beheld on the floor a tiny, carefully-folded sc.r.a.p of paper.

He mechanically picked it up, mechanically unfolded it, and read the following, written in French:

Dear angel Betsy! (I cannot possibly bring myself to call thee Barbe or Varvara). I waited in vain for thee at the corner of the Boulevard; come to-morrow, at half-past one, to our little apartment. Thy good fatty (_ton gros bonhomme de mari_) generally buries himself in his books at that hour; again we will sing the song of your poet Puskin (_de votre poete Pouskine_) which thou hast taught me: 'Old husband, menacing husband!'--A thousand kisses on thy hands and feet! I await thee.

"Ernest."

Lavretzky did not, on the instant, understand what sort of thing it was he had read; he perused it a second time--and his head reeled, the floor swayed beneath his feet, like the deck of a steamer when it is pitching--he cried out, and sobbed and wept simultaneously.

He lost his senses. He had so blindly trusted his wife, that the possibility of deception, of treachery, had never presented itself to his mind. That Ernest, that lover of his wife's was a fair-haired, good-looking boy of three and twenty, with a small snub nose and thin moustache, almost the most insignificant of all her admirers. Several minutes pa.s.sed, half an hour pa.s.sed; Lavretzky still stood, crushing the fatal missive in his hand and staring senselessly at the floor; through a sort of dark whirlwind, visions of pale faces flitted before him; his heart sank within him, in anguish; it seemed to him that he was falling, falling, falling ... and that there was no end to it. The light, familiar rustle of a silken robe aroused him from his state of stupefaction; Varvara Pavlovna, in bonnet and shawl, had hastily returned from her stroll. Lavretzky trembled all over, and rushed out of the room; he felt that at that moment he was capable of tearing her to pieces, of beating her until she was half dead, in peasant fashion, of strangling her with his hands. The astonished Varvara Pavlovna tried to stop him; he could only whisper: "Betsy"--and fled from the house.

Lavretzky took a carriage, and ordered the man to drive him out of town.

The entire remainder of the day, and the whole night long until the morning, he roamed about, incessantly halting and wringing his hands: now he raged, again it seemed rather ridiculous to him, even rather amusing.