Varvara Pavlovna's father, Pavel Petrovich Korobine, a retired
major-general, had been on duty at St. Petersburg during almost the
whole of his life. In his early years he had enjoyed the reputation of
being an able dancer and driller; but as he was very poor he had
to act as aide-de-camp to two or three generals of small renown in
succession, one of whom gave him his daughter in marriage, together
with a dowry of 25,000 roubles. Having made himself master of all the
science of regulations and parades, even to their subtlest details,
he "went on stretching the girth" until at last, after twenty years
service, he became a general, and obtained a regiment. At that point
he might have reposed, and have quietly consolidated his fortune. He
had indeed counted upon doing so, but he managed his affairs rather
imprudently. It seems he had discovered a new method of speculating
with the public money. The method turned out an excellent one, but he
must needs practise quite unreasonable economy,[A] so information was
laid against him, and a more than disagreeable, a ruinous scandal
ensued. Some how or other the general managed to get clear of the
affair; but his career was stopped, and he was recommended to retire
from active service. For about a couple of years he lingered on at St.
Petersburg, in hopes that a snug civil appointment might fall to
his lot; but no such appointment did fall to his lot. His daughter
finished her education at the Institute; his expenses increased day by
day. So he determined, with suppressed indignation, to go to Moscow
for economy's sake; and there, in the Old Stable Street, he hired a
little house with an escutcheon seven feet high on the roof, and began
to live as retired generals do in Moscow on an income of 2,700 roubles
a year[B].
[Footnote A: In other words, he stole, but he neglected to bribe.]
[Footnote B: Nearly £400, the roubles being "silver" ones. The
difference in value between "silver" and "paper" roubles exists no
longer.]
Moscow is an hospitable city, and ready to welcome any one who appears
there, especially if he is a retired general. Pavel Petrovich's form,
which, though heavy, was not devoid of martial bearing, began to
appear in the drawing-rooms frequented by the best society of Moscow.
The back of his head, bald, with the exception of a few tufts of dyed
hair, and the stained ribbon of the Order of St. Anne, which he wore
over a stock of the color of a raven's wing, became familiar to all
the young men of pale and wearied aspect, who were wont to saunter
moodily around the card tables while a dance was going on.
Pavel Petrovich understood how to hold his own in society. He said
little, but always, as of old, spoke through the nose--except, of
course, when he was talking to people of superior rank. He played at
cards prudently, and when he was at home he ate with moderation. At a
party he seemed to be feeding for six. Of his wife scarcely anything
more can be said than that her name was Calliope Carlovna--that a
tear always stood in her left eye, on the strength of which Calliope
Carlovna, who to be sure was of German extraction, considered
herself a woman of feeling--that she always seemed frightened about
something--that she looked as if she never had enough to eat--and that
she always wore a tight velvet dress, a cap, and bracelets of thin,
dull metal.
As to Varvara Pavlovna, the general's only daughter, she was but
seventeen years old when she left the Institute in which she had been
educated. While within its walls she was considered, if not the most
beautiful, at all events the most intelligent of the pupils, and the
best musician, and before leaving it she obtained the Cipher[A]. She
was not yet nineteen when Lavretsky saw her for the first time.
[Footnote A: The initial letter of the name of the Empress, worn as a
kind of decoration by the best pupils in the Imperial Institutes.]