he official decidedly
preponderates over the artist now. His face, though still quite young,
has grown yellow, his hair is thinner than it used to be, and he
neither sings nor draws any longer. But he secretly occupies himself
with literature. He has written a little comedy in the style of a
"proverb;" and--as every one who writes now constantly brings on
the stage some real person or some actual fact--he has introduced a
coquette into it, and he reads it confidentially to a few ladies who
are very kind to him. But he has never married, although he has had
many excellent opportunities for doing so. For that Varvara Pavlovna
is to blame.

As for her, she constantly inhabits Paris, just as she used to do.
Lavretsky has opened a private account for her with his banker, and
has paid a sufficient sum to ensure his being free from her--free from
the possibility of being a second time unexpectedly visited by
her. She has grown older and stouter, but she is still undoubtedly
handsome, and always dresses in taste. Every one has his ideal.
Varvara Pavlovna has found hers--in the plays of M. Dumas _fils_.
She assiduously frequents the theatres in which consumptive and
sentimental Camelias appear on the boards; to be Madame Doche seems to
her the height of human happiness. She once announced that she could
not wish her daughter a happier fate. It may, however, be expected
that destiny will save Mademoiselle Ada from that kind of happiness.
From being a chubby, rosy child, she has changed into a pale,
weak-chested girl, and her nerves are already unstrung. The number
of Varvara Pavlovna's admirers has diminished, but they have not
disappeared. Some of them she will, in all probability, retain to the
end of her days. The most ardent of them in recent times has been a
certain Zakurdalo-Skubyrnikof, a retired officer of the guard, a
man of about thirty-eight years of age, wearing long mustaches, and
possessing a singularly vigorous frame. The Frenchmen who frequent
Madame Lavretsky's drawing-room call him _le gros taureau de
l'Ukraine_. Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her fashionable
parties, but he is in full possession of her good graces.

And so--eight years had passed away. Again spring shone from heaven in
radiant happiness. Again it smiled on earth and on man. Again, beneath
its caress, all things began to love, to flower, to sing.

The town of O. had changed but little in the course of these eight
years, but Madame Kal