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

God-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 assumed 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-class 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 passed 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 assuredly 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 passed 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 God

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.