A House of Gentlefolk

Lavretsky was soon known from Chausée d’Antin to Rue de Lille. In those days⁠—it was in 1836⁠—there had not yet arisen the tribe of journalists and reporters who now swarm on all sides like ants in an anthill; but even then there was seen in Varvara Pavlovna’s salon a certain M. Jules, a gentleman of unprepossessing exterior, with a scandalous reputation, insolent and mean, like all duelists and men who have been beaten. Varvara Pavlovna felt a great aversion to this M. Jules, but she received him because he wrote for various journals, and was incessantly mentioning her, calling her at one time “Madame de L⁠⸺⁠tski,” at another Madame de ⸻, cette grande dame russe si distinguée, qui demeure rue de P⁠⸺ and telling all the world, that is, some hundreds of readers who had nothing to do with Madame de L⁠⸺⁠tski, how charming and delightful this lady was; a true Frenchwoman in intelligence (une vraie française par l’esprit)⁠—Frenchmen have no higher praise than this⁠—what an extraordinary musician she was, and how marvelously she waltzed (Varvara Pavlovna did in fact waltz so that she drew all her hearts to the hem of her light flying skirts)⁠—in a word, he spread her fame through the world, and, whatever one may say, that is pleasant. Mademoiselle Mars had already left the stage, and Mademoiselle Rachel had not yet made her appearance; nevertheless, Varvara Pavlovna was assiduous in visiting the theatres. She went into raptures over Italian music, yawned decorously at the Comédie Française, and wept at the acting of Madame Dorval in some ultra romantic melodrama; and a great thing⁠—Liszt played twice in her salon, and was so kind, so simple⁠—it was charming! In such agreeable sensations was spent the winter, at the end of which Varvara Pavlovna was even presented at court. Fedor Ivanitch, for his part, was not bored, though his life, at times, weighed rather heavily on him⁠—because it was empty. He read the papers, listened to the lectures at the Sorbonne and the College de France, followed the debates in the Chambers, and set to work on a translation of a well-known scientific treatise on irrigation. “I am not wasting my time,” he thought, “it is all of use; but next winter I must, without fail, return to Russia and set to work.” It is difficult to say whether he had any clear idea of precisely what this work would consist of; and there is no telling whether he would have succeeded in going to Russia in the winter; in the meantime, he was going with his wife to Baden⁠ ⁠… An unexpected incident broke up all his plans.

XVI

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 tomorrow. 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,