ands.

In the month of September, Varvara Pavlovna carried her husband off to
Petersburg. She passed two winters in Petersburg (for the summer
she went to stay at Tsarskoe Selo), in a splendid, light,
artistically-furnished flat; they made many acquaintances among the
middle and even higher ranks of society; went out and entertained a
great deal, and gave the most charming dances and musical evenings.
Varvara Pavlovna attracted guests as a fire attracts moths. Fedor
Ivanitch did not altogether like such a frivolous life. His wife advised
him to take some office under government; but from old association with
his father, and also through his own ideas, he was unwilling to
enter government service, still he remained in Petersburg for Varvara
Pavlovna's pleasure. He soon discovered, however, that no one hindered
him from being alone; that it was not for nothing that he had the
quietest and most comfortable study in all Petersburg; that his tender
wife was even ready to aid him to! be alone; and from that time forth
all went well. He again applied himself to his own, as he considered,
unfinished education; he began again to read, and even began to learn
English. It was a strange sight to see his powerful, broad-shouldered
figure for ever bent over his writing table, his full-bearded ruddy face
half buried in the pages of a dictionary or note-book. Every morning he
set to work, then had a capital dinner (Varvara Pavlovna was unrivaled
as a housekeeper), and in the evenings he entered an enchanted world of
light and perfume, peopled by gay young faces, and the centre of this
world was also the careful housekeeper, his wife. She rejoiced his heart
by the birth of a son, but the poor child did not live long; it died in
the spring, and in the summer, by the advice of the doctors, Lavretsky
took his wife abroad to a watering-place. Distraction was essential for
her after such a trouble, and her health, too, required a warm climate.
The summer and autumn they spent in Germany and Switzerland, and for
the winter, as one would naturally expect, they went to Paris. In Paris,
Varvara Pavlovna bloomed like a rose, and was able to make herself a
little nest as quickly and cleverly as in Petersburg. She found very
pretty apartments in one of the quiet but fashionable streets in Paris;
she embroidered her husband such a dressing-gown as he had never worn
before; engaged a coquettish waiting maid, an excellent cook, and a
smart footman, pr