oderately at home, but consumed
enough for six at parties. Of his wife there is scarcely anything to
be said. Her name was Kalliopa Karlovna. There was always a tear in her
left eye, on the strength of which Kalliopa Karlovna (she was, one
must add, of German extraction) considered herself a woman of great
sensibility. She was always in a state of nervous agitation, seemed as
though she were ill-nourished, and wore a tight velvet dress, a cap, and
tarnished hollow bracelets. The only daughter of Pavel Petrovitch and
Kalliopa Karlovna, Varvara Pavlovna, was only just seventeen when she
left the boarding-school, in which she had been reckoned, if not the
prettiest, at least the cleverest pupil and the best musician, and where
she had taken a decoration. She was not yet nineteen, when Lavretsky saw
her for the first time.

Chapter XIV

The young Spartan's legs shook under him when Mihalevitch conducted him
into the rather shabbily furnished drawing-room of the Korobyins, and
presented him to them. But his overwhelming feeling of timidity soon
disappeared. In the general the good-nature innate in all Russians was
intensified by that special kind of geniality which is peculiar to all
people who have done something disgraceful; the general's lady was as
it were overlooked by every one; and as for Varvara Pavlovna, she was so
self-possessed and easily cordial that every one at once felt at home
in her presence; besides, about all her fascinating person, her smiling
eyes, her faultlessly sloping shoulders and rosy-tinged white hands, her
light and yet languid movements, the very sound of her voice, slow and
sweet, there was an impalpable, subtle charm, like a faint perfume,
voluptuous, tender, soft, though still modest, something which is hard
to translate into words, but which moved and kindled--and timidity!
was not the feeing it kindled. Lavretsky turned the conversation on
the theater, on the performance of the previous day; she at once began
herself to discuss Motchalov, and did not confine herself to sighs and
interjections only, but uttered a few true observations full of feminine
insight in regard to his acting. Mihalevitch spoke about music; she sat
down without ceremony to the piano, and very correctly played some of
Chopin's mazurkas, which were then just coming into fashion. Dinner-time
came; Lavretsky would have gone away, but they made him stay: at dinner
the general regaled him with excellent Lafitte, whic