n such a manner as to draw all hearts after the hem of
her light, fluttering gown) ... in a word, he spread her fame throughout
the world,--and assuredly that is agreeable, say what you will. Mlle. Mars
had already left the stage, and Mlle. Rachel had not yet made her
appearance; nevertheless, Varvara Pavlovna diligently frequented the
theatres. She went into ecstasies over Italian music, and laughed at the
ruins of Odra, yawned decorously at the Comedie Francaise, and wept at
the acting of Mme. Dorval in some ultra-romantic melodrama or other; but,
chief of all, Liszt played a couple of times at her house, and was so nice,
so simple--it was delightful! In such pleasant sensations passed a winter,
at the end of which Varvara Pavlovna was even presented at Court. Feodor
Ivanitch, on his side, was not bored, although life, at times, weighed
heavily on his shoulders,--heavily, because it was empty. He read the
newspapers, he listened to lectures at the Sorbonne and the College de
France, he kept track of the debates in parliament, he undertook the
translation of a well-known scientific work on irrigation. "I am not
wasting time,"--he said to himself,--"all this is useful; but next winter I
must, without fail, return to Russia and set to work." It is difficult to
say, whether he was clearly conscious in what that work consisted, and God
knows whether he would have succeeded in returning to Russia for the
winter,--in the meantime, he went with his wife to Baden-Baden.... An
unexpected event destroyed all his plans.

XVI

One day, on entering Varvara Pavlovna's boudoir in her absence,
Lavretzky beheld on the floor a tiny, carefully-folded scrap of paper.
He mechanically picked it up, mechanically unfolded it, and read the
following, written in French:

Dear angel Betsy! (I cannot possibly bring myself
to call thee Barbe or Varvara). I waited in vain for
thee at the corner of the Boulevard; come to-morrow,
at half-past one, to our little apartment. Thy good
fatty (_ton gros bonhomme de mari_) generally buries
himself in his books at that hour; again we will sing
the song of your poet Puskin (_de votre poete Pouskine_)
which thou hast taught me: 'Old husband, menacing
husband!'--A thousand kisses on thy hands and
feet! I await thee.
"Ernest."

Lavretzky did not, on the instant, understand wha