country. Having
been properly prepared in advance, Lavretzky immediately consented to
her departure.--Glafira Petrovna had not expected this. "Very well,"
said she, and her eyes grew dark,--"I see that I am not wanted here! I
know who it is that is driving me hence--from my native nest. But do thou
remember my words, nephew: thou shalt never be able to build thyself a
nest anywhere, thou must wander all thy life. That is my legacy to
thee."--That very day she departed to her own little estate, and a week
later General Korobyn arrived, and with agreeable melancholy in his gaze
and movements, took the management of the entire estate into his hands.

In September, Varvara Petrovna carried her husband off to Petersburg. She
spent two winters in Petersburg (they removed to Tzarskoe Selo for the
summer), in a beautiful, light, elegantly furnished apartment; they made
many acquaintances in middle-class and even in the higher circles of
society, they went out and received a great deal, and gave most charming
musical and dancing parties. Varvara Pavlovna attracted guests as a flame
attracts moths. Such a dissipated life did not altogether please Feodor
Ivanitch. His wife advised him to enter the service; owing to his father's
old memories, and his own conceptions, he would not serve, but to please
his wife he remained in Petersburg. But he speedily divined that no one
prevented his isolating himself, that it was not for nothing that he had
the quietest and most comfortable study in all Petersburg, that his
solicitous wife was even ready to help him to isolate himself,--and from
that time forth all went splendidly. Once more he took up his own
education, which, in his opinion, was unfinished, once more he began to
read, he even began to study the English language. It was strange to see
his mighty, broad-shouldered figure, eternally bent over his writing-table,
his full, hairy, ruddy face half concealed by the pages of a dictionary or
an exercise-book. Every morning he spent in work, dined capitally (Varvara
Pavlovna was an excellent housewife), and in the evening he entered an
enchanting, fragrant, brilliant world, all populated with young, merry
faces,--and the central point of that world was also the zealous hostess,
his wife. She gladdened him with the birth of a son, but the poor boy did
not live long: he died in the spring, and in the summer, by the advice of
the physicians, Lavretzky took his wife abroad, to the baths. Diver