Chapter 6
From that day he began to visit the Korobines frequently. After six months had passed, he proposed to Varvara Pavlovna, and his offer was accepted. Long, long before, even if it was not the night before Lavretsky's first visit, the General had asked Mikhalevich how many serfs[A] his friend had. Even Varvara Pavlona, who had preserved her wonted composure and equanimity during the whole period of her young admirer's courtship, and even at the very moment of his declaration--even Varvara Pavlovna knew perfectly well that her betrothed was rich. And Calliope Carlovna thought to herself, "_Meine Tochter macht eine schöne Partie_[B]"--and bought herself a new cap.
[Footnote A: Literally, "souls," _i.e._, male peasants.]
[Footnote B: My daughter is going to make a capital match.]
XV.
And so his offer was accepted, but under certain conditions. In the first place, Lavretsky must immediately leave the university. Who could think of marrying a student? And what an extraordinary idea, a landed proprietor, a rich man, at twenty-six years of age, to be taking lessons like a schoolboy! In the second place, Varvara Pavlovna was to take upon herself the trouble of ordering and buying her trousseau. She even chose the presents the bridegroom was to give. She had very good taste, and a great deal of common sense, and she possessed a great liking for comfort, and no small skill in getting herself that comfort. Lavretsky was particularly struck by this talent when, immediately after the wedding, he and his wife set off for Lavriki, travelling in a convenient carriage which she had chosen herself. How carefully all their surroundings had been meditated over by Varvara Pavlovna! what prescience she had shown in providing them! What charming travelling contrivances made their appearance in the various convenient corners! what delicious toilet boxes! what excellent coffee machines! and how gracefully did Varvara Pavlovna herself make the coffee in the morning! But it must be confessed that Lavretsky was little fitted for critical observation just then. He revelled in his happiness, he was intoxicated by his good fortune, he abandoned himself to it like a child--he was, indeed, as innocent as a child, this young Hercules. Not in vain did a charmed influence attach itself to the whole presence of his young wife; not in vain did she promise to the imagination a secret treasure of unknown delights. She was even better than her promise.
When she arrived at Lavriki, which was in the very hottest part of the summer, the house seemed to her sombre and in bad order, the servants antiquated and ridiculous; but she did not think it necessary to say a word about this to her husband. If she had intended to settle at Lavriki, she would have altered every thing there, beginning of course with the house; but the idea of staying in that out-of-the-way corner never, even for an instant, came into her mind. She merely lodged in it, as she would have done in a tent, putting up with all its discomforts in the sweetest manner, and laughing at them pleasantly.
When Marfa Timofeevna came to see her old pupil, she produced a favorable impression on Varvara Pavlovna. But Varvara was not at all to the old lady's liking. Nor did the young mistress of the house get on comfortably with Glafira Petrovna. She herself would have been content to leave Glafira in peace, but the general was anxious to get his hand into the management of his son-in-law's affairs. To see after the property of so near a relative, he said, was an occupation that even a general might adopt without disgrace. It is possible that Pavel Petrovich would not have disdained to occupy himself with the affairs of even an utter stranger.
Varvara Pavlovna carried out her plan of attack very skillfully. Although never putting herself forward, but being to all appearance thoroughly immersed in the bliss of the honeymoon, in the quiet life of the country, in music, and in books, she little by little worked upon Glafira, until that lady, one morning, burst into Lavretsky's study like a maniac, flung her bunch of keys on the table, and announced that she could no longer look after the affairs of the household, and that she did not wish to remain on the estate. As Lavretsky had been fitly prepared for the scene, he immediately gave his consent to her departure. This Glafira Petrovna had not expected. "Good," she said, and her brow grew dark. "I see that I am not wanted here. I know that I am expelled hence, driven away from the family nest. But, nephew, remember my words--nowhere will you be able to build you a nest; your lot will be to wander about without ceasing. There is my parting legacy to you." That same day she went off to her own little property: a week later General Korobine arrived, and, with a pleasantly subdued air, took the whole management of the estate into his own hands.
In September Varvara Pavlovna carried off her husband to St. Petersburg. There the young couple spent two winters--migrating in the summer to Tsarskoe Selo. They lived in handsome, bright, admirably-furnished apartments; they made numerous acquaintances in the upper and even the highest circles of society; they went out a great deal and received frequently, giving very charming musical parties and dances. Varvara Pavlovna attracted visitors as a light does moths.
Such a distracting life did not greatly please Fedor Ivanich. His wife wanted him to enter the service; but, partly in deference to his father's memory, partly in accordance with his own ideas, he would not do so, though he remained in St. Petersburg to please his wife. However, he soon found out that no one objected to his isolating himself, that it was not without an object that his study had been made the quietest and the most comfortable in the whole city, that his attentive wife was ever ready to encourage him in isolating himself; and from that time all went well. He again began to occupy himself with his as yet, as he thought, unfinished education. He entered upon anew course of reading; he even began the study of English. It was curious to see his powerful, broad-shouldered figure constantly bending over his writing-table, his full, ruddy, bearded face, half-hidden by the leaves of a dictionary or a copy-book. His mornings were always spent over his work; later in the day he sat down to an excellent dinner--for Varvara Pavlovna always managed her household affairs admirably; and in the evening he entered an enchanted, perfumed, brilliant world, all peopled by young and joyous beings, the central point of their world being that extremely attentive manager of the household, his wife.
She made him happy with a son; but the poor child did not live long. It died in the spring; and in the summer, in accordance with the advice of the doctors, Lavretsky and his wife went the round of the foreign watering-places. Distraction was absolutely necessary for her after such a misfortune; and, besides, her health demanded a warmer climate. That summer and autumn they spent in Germany and Switzerland; and in the winter, as might be expected, they went to Paris.
In Paris Varvara Pavlovna bloomed like a rose; and there, just as quickly and as skilfully as she had done in St. Petersburg, she learnt how to build herself a snug little nest. She procured a very pretty set of apartments in one of the quiet but fashionable streets, she made her husband such a dressing-gown as he had never worn before; she secured an elegant lady's maid, an excellent cook, and an energetic footman; and she provided herself with an exquisite carriage, and a charming cabinet piano. Before a week was over she could already cross a street, put on a shawl, open a parasol, and wear gloves, as well as the most pure-blooded of Parisian women.
She soon made acquaintances also. At first only Russians used to come to her house; then Frenchmen began to show themselves--amiable bachelors, of polished manners, exquisite in demeanor, and bearing high-sounding names. They all talked a great deal and very fast, they bowed gracefully, their eyes twinkled pleasantly. All of them possessed teeth which gleamed white between rosy lips; and how beautifully they smiled! Each of them brought his friends; and before long _La belle Madame de Lavretski_ became well known from the _Chausée d' Antin_ to the _Rue de Lille_. At that time--it was in 1836--the race of _feuilletonists_ and journalists, which now swarms everywhere, numerous as the ants one sees when a hole is made in an ant-hill, had not yet succeeded in multiplying in numbers. Still, there used to appear in Varvara Pavlovna's drawing-room a certain M. Jules, a gentleman who bore a very bad character, whose appearance was unprepossessing, and whose manner was at once insolent and cringing--like that of all duellists and people who have been horsewhipped. Varvara disliked this M. Jules very much; but she received him because he wrote in several newspapers, and used to be constantly mentioning her, calling her sometimes Madame de L ... tski, sometimes Madame de * * *, _cette grande dame Russe si distinguée, qui demeure rue de P----_, and describing to the whole world, that is to say to some few hundreds of subscribers, who had nothing whatever to do with Madame de L ... tski, how loveable and charming was that lady, _une vraie française par l'esprit_,--the French have no higher praise than this,--what an extraordinary musician she was, and how wonderfully she waltzed. (Varvara Pavlovna did really waltz so as to allure all hearts to the skirt of her light, floating robe.) In fact, he spread her fame abroad throughout the world; and this we know, whatever people may say, is pleasant.
Mademoiselle Mars had by that time quitted the stage, and Mademoiselle Rachel had not yet appeared there; but for all that Varvara Pavlovna none the less assiduously attended the theatres. She went into raptures about Italian music, and laughed over the ruins of Odry, yawned in a becoming manner at the legitimate drama, and cried at the sight of Madame Dorval's acting in some ultra-melodramatic piece. Above all, Liszt played at her house twice, and was so gracious, so unaffected! It was charming!
Amid such pleasurable sensations passed the winter, at the end of which Varvara Pavlovna was even presented at Court. As for Fedor Ivanovich, he was not exactly bored, but life began to weigh heavily on his shoulders at times--heavily because of its very emptiness. He read the papers, he listened to the lectures at the _Sorbonne_ and the _College de France_, he followed the debates in the Chambers, he occupied himself in translating a famous scientific work on irrigation. "I am not wasting my time," he thought; "all this is of use; but next winter I really must return to Russia, and betake myself to active business." It would be hard to say if he had any clear idea of what were the special characteristics of that business, and only Heaven could tell whether he was likely to succeed in getting back to Russia in the winter. In the meanwhile he was intending to go with his wife to Baden. But an unexpected occurrence upset all his plans.
XVI.
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.
XVII.
About ten o'clock in the morning, on the day after that of which we have already spoken, Lavretsky was going up the steps of the Kalitines' house, when he met Liza with her bonnet and gloves on.
"Where are you going?" he asked her.
"To church. To-day is Sunday."
"And so you go to church?"
Liza looked at him in silent wonder.
"I beg your pardon," said Lavretsky. "I--I did not mean to say that. I came to take leave of you. I shall start for my country-house in another hour."
"That isn't far from here, is it?" asked Liza.
"About five-and-twenty versts."
At this moment Lenochka appeared at the door, accompanied by a maid-servant.
"Mind you don't forget us," said Liza, and went down the steps.
"Don't forget me either. By the way," he continued, "you are going to church; say a prayer for me too, while you are there."
Liza stopped and turned towards him.
"Very well," she said, looking him full in the face. "I will pray for you, too. Come, Lenochka."
Lavretsky found Maria Dmitrievna alone in the drawing-room, which was redolent of Eau de Cologne and peppermint. Her head ached, she said, and she had spent a restless night.
She received him with her usual languid amiability, and by degrees began to talk.
"Tell me," she asked him, "is not Vladimir Nikolaevich a very agreeable young man?"
"Who is Vladimir Nikolaevich?"
"Why Panshine, you know, who was here yesterday. He was immensely delighted with you. Between ourselves I may mention, _mon cher cousin_, that he is perfectly infatuated with my Liza. Well, he is of good family, he is getting on capitally in the service, he is clever, and besides he is a chamberlain; and if such be the will of God--I, for my part, as a mother, shall be glad of it. It is certainly a great responsibility; most certainly the happiness of children depends upon their parents. But this much must be allowed. Up to the present time, whether well or ill, I have done every thing myself, and entirely by myself. I have brought up my children and taught them every thing myself--and now I have just written to Maclame Bulous for a governess--"
Maria Dmitrievna launched out into a description of her cares, her efforts, her maternal feelings. Lavretsky listened to her in silence, and twirled his hat in his hands. His cold, unsympathetic look at last disconcerted the talkative lady.
"And what do you think of Liza?" she asked.
"Lizaveta Mikhailovna is an exceedingly handsome girl," replied Lavretsky. Then he got up, said good-bye, and went to pay Marfa Timofeevna a visit. Maria Dmitrievna looked after him with an expression of dissatisfaction, and thought to herself, "What a bear! what a moujik! Well, now I understand why his wife couldn't remain faithful to him."