n 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 St.
Petersburg; that his tender wife was ever ready to aid him to be alone.

In the course of time a son was born to them, but the poor child did not
live long--it died in the spring, and in the summer Lavretsky took his
wife abroad. One summer and autumn they spent in Germany and
Switzerland, and for the winter they went to Paris.

In Paris Barbara Paulovna made herself a little nest as quickly and as
cleverly as in St. Petersburg. She soon drew round herself
acquaintances--at first only Russians, afterwards Frenchmen with very
excellent manners and fine-sounding names. All of them brought their
friends, and _la belle Mme. de Lavretsky_ was soon known from Chausee
d'Antin to Rue de Lille.

Fedor Ivanitch still busied himself with study, and set to work
translating a well-known 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 get to work." An unexpected incident broke up
his plans.

_II.--Separation_

Lavretsky had the most absolute confidence in his wife's every action
and thought. She was always as calm, affectionate, and confidential with
him as she had been from the first. It was therefore with a feeling of
stupefaction that, going one day into her boudoir during her absence, he
picked up from the floor a note that disclosed her infidelity. He read
it absent-mindedly, and did not understand what he had read. He read it
a second time--his head began to swim, the ground to sway under his
feet.

He had so blindly believed in her; the possibility of deception, of
treason, had never presented itself to his mind. He could not
understand. This young Frenchman, almost the most insignificant of all
his wife's acquaintances! The fear was borne in upon him that perhaps
she had never been worthy of the trust he had reposed in her. To
complete it all, he had been hoping in a few months to become a father.

All that night he wandered, half-distraught, about the streets of Paris
and in the open country beyond. In the morning he went to an hotel and
sent the incriminating note to his wife, with the following letter:

"The enclosed scraps of paper will explain everything to you. I cannot
see you again; I imagine that you, too, would hardly desire an interview
with me. I am assignin