Happening to go one day in Varvara Pavlovna’s absence into her
boudoir, Lavretsky saw on the floor a carefully folded little paper.
He mechanically picked it up, unfolded it, and read the following note,
written in French:
“Sweet angel Betsy (I never can make up my mind to call you Barbe or
Varvara), I waited in vain for you at the corner of the boulevard; come
to our little room at half-past one to-morrow. Your stout good-natured
husband (ton gros bonhomme de mari) is usually buried in his books at
that time; we will sing once more the song of your poet Pouskine (de
votre poète Pouskine) that you taught me: ‘Old husband, cruel husband!’
A thousand kisses on your little hands and feet. I await you.
“Ernest.”
Lavretsky did not at once understand what he had read; he read it a
second time, and his head began to swim, the ground began to sway under
his feet like the deck of a ship in a rolling sea. He began to cry out
and gasp and weep all at the same instant.
He was utterly overwhelmed. He had so blindly believed in his wife; the
possibility of deception, of treason, had never presented itself to his
mind. This Ernest, his wife’s lover, was a fair-haired pretty boy
of three-and-twenty, with a little turned-up nose and refined little
moustaches, almost the most insignificant of all her acquaintances. A
few minutes passed, half an hour passed, Lavretsky still stood, crushing
the fatal note in his hands, and gazing senselessly at the floor; across
a kind of tempest of darkness pale shapes hovered about him; his
heart was numb with anguish; he seemed to be falling, falling--and a
bottomless abyss was opening at his feet. A familiar light rustle of a
silk dress roused him from his numbness; Varvara Pavlovna in her hat and
shawl was returning in haste from her walk. Lavretsky trembled all over
and rushed away; he felt that at that instant he was capable of tearing
her to pieces, beating her to death, as a peasant might do, strangling
her with his own hands. Varvara Pavlovna in amazement tried to stop him;
he could only whisper, “Betsy,”--and ran out of the house.
Lavretsky took a cab and ordered the man to drive him out of town. All
the rest of the day and the whole night he wandered about, constantly
stopping short and wringing his hands, at one moment he was mad, and
the next he was ready to laugh, was even merry after a fashion. By the
morning he grew calm through exhaustion, and went into a wretched tavern
in the outskirts, asked for a room and sat down on a chair before
the window. He was overtaken by a fit of convulsive yawning. He could
scarcely stand upright, his whole body was worn out, and he did not even
feel fatigue, though fatigue began to do its work; he sat and gazed and
comprehended nothing; he did not understand what had happened to him,
why he found himself alone, with his limbs stiff, with a taste
of bitterness in his mouth, with a load on his heart, in an empty
unfamiliar room; he did not understand what had impelled her, his Varya,
to give herself to this Frenchman, and how, knowing herself unfaithful,
she could go on being just as calm, just as affectionate, as
confidential with him as before! “I cannot understand it!” his parched
lips whispered. “Who can guarantee now that even in Petersburg”... And
he did not finish the question, and yawned again, shivering and shaking
all over. Memories--bright and gloomy--fretted him alike; suddenly it
crossed his mind how some days before she had sat down to the piano and
sung before him and Ernest the song, “Old husband, cruel husband!” He
recalled the expression of her face, the strange light in her eyes, and
the colour on her cheeks--and he got up from his seat, he would have
liked to go to them, to tell them: “You were wrong to play your tricks
on me; my great-grandfather used to hang the peasants up by their ribs,
and my grandfather was himself a peasant,” and to kill them both. Then
all at once it seemed to him as if all that was happening was a dream,
scarcely even a dream, but some kind of foolish joke; that he need
only shake himself and look round... He looked round, and like a hawk
clutching its captured prey, anguish gnawed deeper and deeper into his
heart. To complete it all Lavretsky had been hoping in a few months to
be a father.... The past, the future, his whole life was poisoned. He
went back at last to Paris, stopped at an hotel and sent M. Ernest’s
note to Varvara Pavlovna with the following letter:--
“The enclosed scrap of paper will explain everything to you. Let me
tell you by the way, that I was surprised at you; you, who are always so
careful, to leave such valuable papers lying about.” (Poor Lavretsky had
spent hours preparing and gloating over this phrase.) “I cannot see you
again; I imagine that you, too, would hardly desire an interview with
me. I am assigning you 15,000 francs a year; I cannot give more. Send
your address to the office of the estate. Do what you please; live where
you please. I wish you happiness. No answer is needed.”
Lavretsky wrote to his wife that he needed no answer... but he waited,
he thirsted for a reply, for an explanation of this incredible,
inconceivable thing. Varvara Pavlovna wrote him the same day a
long letter in French. It put the finishing touch; his last doubts
vanished,--and he began to feel ashamed that he had still had any doubt
left. Varvara Pavlovna did not attempt to defend herself; her only
desire was to see him, she besought him not to condemn her irrevocably.
The letter was cold and constrained, though here and there traces of
tears were visible. Lavretsky smiled bitterly, and sent word by the
messenger that it was all right. Three days later he was no longer
in Paris; but he did not go to Russia, but to Italy. He did not know
himself why he fixed upon Italy; he did not really care where he
went--so long as it was not home. He sent instructions to his steward
on the subject of his wife’s allowance, and at the same time told him
to take all control of his property out of General Korobyin’s hands
at once, without waiting for him to draw up an account, and to make
arrangements for his Excellency’s departure from Lavriky; he could
picture vividly the confusion, the vain airs of self-importance of the
dispossessed general, and in the midst of all his sorrow, he felt a kind
of spiteful satisfaction. At the same time he asked Glafira Petrovna by
letter to return to Lavriky, and drew up a deed authorising her to take
possession; Glafira Petrovna did not return to Lavriky, and printed
in the newspapers that the deed was cancelled, which was perfectly
unnecessary on her part. Lavretsky kept out of sight in a small Italian
town, but for a long time he could not help following his wife’s
movements. From the newspapers he learned that she had gone from Paris
to Baden as she had arranged; her name soon appeared in an article
written by the same M. Jules. In this article there was a kind of
sympathetic condolence apparent under the habitual playfulness; there
was a deep sense of disgust in the soul of Fedor Ivanitch as he read
this article. Afterwards he learned that a daughter had been born to
him; two months later he received a notification from his steward that
Varvara Pavlovna had asked for the first quarter’s allowance. Then worse
and worse rumors began to reach him; at last, a tragic-comic story
was reported with acclamations in all the papers. His wife played an
unenviable part in it. It was the finishing stroke; Varvara Pavlovna had
become a “notoriety.”
Lavretsky ceased to follow her movements; but he could not quickly gain
mastery over himself. Sometimes he was overcome by such a longing for
his wife that he would have given up everything, he thought, even,
perhaps... could have forgiven her, only to hear her caressing voice
again, to feel again her hand in his. Time, however, did not pass in
vain. He was not born to be a victim; his healthy nature reasserted its
rights. Much became clear to him; even the blow that had fallen on him
no longer seemed to him to have been quite unforeseen; he understood his
wife,--we can only fully understand those who are near to us, when we
are separated from them. He could take up his interests, could work
again, though with nothing like his former zeal; scepticism, half-formed
already by the experiences of his life, and by his education, took
complete possession of his heart. He became indifferent to everything.
Four years passed by, and he felt himself strong enough to return to his
country, to meet his own people. Without stopping at Petersburg or at
Moscow he came to the town of O-----, where we parted from him, and
whither we will now ask the indulgent reader to return with us.