One day when he happened to go into Varvara Pavlovna's boudoir during
her absence, Lavretsky saw a carefully folded little piece of paper
lying on the floor. Half mechanically he picked it up and opened
it--and read the following lines written in French:--
* * * * *
"MY DEAR ANGEL BETTY,
"(I really cannot make up my mind to call you Barbe or Varvara). I
have waited in vain for you at the corner of the Boulevard. Come to
our rooms to-morrow at half-past one. That excellent husband of yours
is generally absorbed in his books at that time--we will sing over
again that song of your poet Pushkin which you taught me, 'Old
husband, cruel husband!' A thousand kisses to your dear little hands
and feet. I await you.
"ERNEST."
* * * * *
At first Lavretsky did not comprehend the meaning of what he had read.
He read it a second time--and his head swam, and the ground
swayed beneath his feet like the deck of a ship in a storm, and a
half-stifled sound issued from his lips, that was neither quite a cry
nor quite a sob.
He was utterly confounded. He had trusted his wife so blindly; the
possibility of deceit or of treachery on her part had never entered
into his mind. This Ernest, his wife's lover, was a pretty boy of
about three-and-twenty, with light hair, a turned-up nose, and a small
moustache--probably the most insignificant of all his acquaintances.
Several minutes passed; a half hour passed. Lavretsky still stood
there, clenching the fatal note in his hand, and gazing unmeaningly on
the floor. A sort of dark whirlwind seemed to sweep round him, pale
faces to glimmer through it.
A painful sensation of numbness had seized his heart. He felt as if he
were falling, falling, falling--into a bottomless abyss.
The soft rustle of a silk dress roused him from his torpor by its
familiar sound. Varvara Pavlovna came in hurriedly from out of doors.
Lavretsky shuddered all over and rushed out of the room. He felt that
at that moment he was ready to tear her to pieces, to strangle her
with his own hands, at least to beat her all but to death in peasant
fashion. Varvara Pavlovna, in her amazement, wanted to stay him. He
just succeeded in whispering "Betty"--and then he fled from the house.
Lavretsky took a carriage and drove outside the barriers. All the rest
of the day, and the whole of the night he wandered about, constantly
stopping and wringing his hands above his head. Sometimes he was
frantic with rage, at others every thing seemed to move him to
laughter, even to a kind of mirth. When the morning dawned he felt
half frozen, so he entered a wretched little suburban tavern, asked
for a room, and sat down on a chair before the window. A convulsive
fit of yawning seized him. By that time he was scarcely able to keep
upright, and his bodily strength was utterly exhausted. Still he was
not conscious of fatigue. But fatigue had its own way. He continued
sitting there and gazing vacantly, but he comprehended nothing. He
could not make out what had happened to him, why he found himself
there, alone, in an empty, unknown room, with numbed limbs, with a
sense of bitterness in his mouth, with a weight like that of a great
stone on his heart. He could not understand what had induced her, his
Varvara, to give herself to that Frenchman, and how, knowing herself
to be false to him, she could have remained as calm as ever in his
presence, as confiding and caressing as ever towards him. "I cannot
make it out," whispered his dry lips. "And how can I be sure now that
even at St. Petersburg--?" but he did not complete the question; a
fresh gaping fit seized him, and his whole frame shrank and shivered.
Sunny and sombre memories equally tormented him. He suddenly
recollected how a few days before, she had sat at the piano, when both
he and Ernest were present, and had sung "Old husband, cruel husband!"
He remembered the expression of her face, the strange brilliance of
her eyes, and the color in her cheeks--and he rose from his chair,
longing to go to them and say, "You were wrong to play your tricks on
me. My great grandfather used to hang his peasants on hooks by their
ribs, and my grandfather was a peasant himself,"--and then kill them
both. All of a sudden it would appear to him as if every thing that
had happened were a dream, even not so much as a dream, but just some
absurd fancy; as if he had only to give himself a shake and take a
look round--and he did look round; and as a hawk claws a captured
bird, so did his misery strike deeper and deeper into his heart. What
made things worse was that Lavretsky had hoped, in the course of a few
months, to find himself once more a father. His past, his future, his
whole life was poisoned.
At last he returned to Paris, went to a hotel, and sent Varvara
Pavlovna M. Ernest's note with the following letter:--
"The scrap of paper which accompanies this will explain every thing to
you. I may as well tell you that you do not seem to have behaved in
this matter with your usual tact. You, so careful a person, to drop
such important papers (poor Lavretsky had been preparing this phrase,
and fondling it, as it were, for several hours). I can see you no
more, and I suppose that you too can have no wish for an interview
with me. I assign you fifteen thousand roubles a year. I cannot give
you more. Send your address to the steward of my estate. And now do
what you like; live where you please. I wish you all prosperity. I
want no answer."
Lavretsky told his wife that he wanted no answer; but he did expect,
he even longed for an answer--an explanation of this strange, this
incomprehensible affair. That same day Varvara Pavlovna sent him
a long letter in French. It was the final blow. His last doubts
vanished, and he even felt ashamed of having retained any doubts.
Varvara Pavlovna did not attempt to justify herself. All that
she wanted was to see him; she besought him not to condemn her
irrevocably. The letter was cold and constrained, though marks of
tears were to be seen on it here and there. Lavretsky smiled bitterly,
and sent a message by the bearer, to the effect that the letter needed
no reply.
Three days later he was no longer in Paris; but he went to Italy, not
to Russia. He did not himself know why he chose Italy in particular.
In reality, it was all the same to him where he went--so long as
he did not go home. He sent word to his steward about his wife's
allowance, ordering him, at the same time, to withdraw the whole
management of the estate from General Korobine immediately, without
waiting for any settlement of accounts, and to see to his Excellency's
departure from Lavriki. He indulged in a vivid picture of the
confusion of the expelled general, the useless airs which he would
put on, and, in spite of his sorrow, he was conscious of a certain
malicious satisfaction. At the same time he wrote to Glafira Petrovna,
asking her to return to Lavriki, and drew up a power-of-attorney in
her name. But Glafira Petrovna would not return to Lavriki; she
even advertised in the newspapers that the power-of-attorney was
cancelled,--a perfectly superfluous proceeding on her part.
Lavretsky hid himself in a little Italian town; but for a long time
he could not help mentally following his wife's movements. He learned
from the newspapers that she had left Paris for Baden, as she had
intended. Her name soon appeared in a short article signed by the M.
Jules of whom we have already spoken. The perusal of that article
produced a very unpleasant effect on Lavretsky's mind. He detected in
it, underneath the writer's usual sprightliness, a sort of tone of
charitable commiseration. Next he learned that a daughter had been
born to him. Two months later he was informed by his steward that
Varvara Pavlovna had drawn her first quarter's allowance. After that,
scandalous reports about her began to arrive; then they became more
and more frequent; at last a tragicomic story, in which she played a
very unenviable part, ran the round of all the journals, and created
a great sensation. Affairs had come to a climax. Varvara Pavlovna was
now "a celebrity."
Lavretsky ceased to follow her movements. But it was long before he
could master his own feelings. Sometimes he was seized by such a
longing after his wife, that he fancied he would have been ready to
give every thing he had--that he could, perhaps, even have forgiven
her--if only he might once more have heard her caressing voice, have
felt once more her hand in his. But time did not pass by in vain. He
was not born for suffering. His healthy nature claimed its rights.
Many things became intelligible for him. The very blow which had
struck him seemed no longer to have come without warning. He
understood his wife now. We can never fully understand persons with
whom we are generally in close contact, until we have been separated
from them. He was able to apply himself to business again, and
to study, although now with much less than his former ardor; the
scepticism for which both his education and his experience of life
had paved the way, had taken lasting hold upon his mind. He became
exceedingly indifferent to every thing. Four years passed by, and he
felt strong enough to return to his home, to meet his own people.
Without having stopped either at St. Petersburg or at Moscow, he
arrived at O., where we left him, and whither we now entreat the
reader to return with us.