15. Chapter XV
So his proposal was accepted, but on certain conditions. In the first place, Lavrétzky must immediately leave the university: who marries a student? and what a dreadful idea,--for a landed proprietor, rich, and twenty-six years old, to take lessons like a school-boy! In the second place, Varvára Pávlovna took upon herself the labour of ordering and purchasing the trousseau, even of choosing the bridegroom's gifts. She had a great deal of practical sense, much taste, much love for comfort, and a great knack for securing for herself that comfort. This knack particularly astonished Lavrétzky when, immediately after the wedding, he and his wife set out in a commodious carriage, which she had bought, for Lavríki. How everything which surrounded him had been planned, foreseen, provided for by Varvára Pávlovna! What charming travelling requisites, what fascinating toilet-boxes and coffeepots, made their appearance in divers snug nooks, and how prettily Varvára Pávlovna herself boiled the coffee in the mornings! But Lavrétzky was not then in a mood for observation: he was in a beatific state, he was intoxicating himself with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child.... And he was as innocent as a child, that young Alcides. Not in vain did witchery exhale from the whole being of his young wife; not in vain did she promise to the senses the secret luxury of unknown delights; she fulfilled more than she had promised. On arriving at Lavríki, in the very hottest part of the summer, she found the house dirty and dark, the servants ridiculous and antiquated, but she did not find it necessary even to hint at this to her husband. If she had been making preparations to settle down at Lavríki, she would have made over everything about it, beginning, of course, with the house; but the idea of remaining in that God-forsaken corner of the steppes never entered her mind for one moment; she lived in it, as though camping out, gently enduring all the inconveniences and making amusing jests over them. Márfa Timoféevna came to see her nursling; Varvára Pávlovna took a great liking for her, but she did not take a liking for Varvára Pávlovna. Neither did the new mistress of the house get on well with Glafíra Petróvna; she would have left her in peace, but old Koróbyn wanted to feather his nest from his son-in-law's affairs; "it was no shame, even for a General," said he, "to manage the estate of so near a relative." It must be assumed that Pável Petróvitch would not have disdained to busy himself with the estate of an entire stranger. Varvára Pávlovna conducted her attack in a very artful manner: without thrusting herself forward, and still, to all appearances, wholly absorbed in the felicity of the honeymoon, in quiet country life, in music and reading, she little by little drove Glafíra Petróvna to such a state, that one morning the latter rushed like a madwoman into Lavrétzky's study, and, hurling her bunch of keys on the table, announced that it was beyond her power to occupy herself with the housekeeping, and that she did not wish to remain in the country. Having been properly prepared in advance, Lavrétzky immediately consented to her departure.--Glafíra Petróvna 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 Koróbyn arrived, and with agreeable melancholy in his gaze and movements, took the management of the entire estate into his hands.
In September, Varvára Petróvna carried her husband off to Petersburg. She spent two winters in Petersburg (they removed to Tzárskoe Seló 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. Varvára Pávlovna attracted guests as a flame attracts moths. Such a dissipated life did not altogether please Feódor Ivánitch. 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 (Varvára Pávlovna 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, Lavrétzky took his wife abroad, to the baths. Diversion was indispensable to her, after such a bereavement, and her health required a warm climate. They spent the summer and autumn in Germany and Switzerland, and in the winter, as might have been expected, they went to Paris. In Paris Varvára Pávlovna blossomed out like a rose, and managed to build a little nest for herself as promptly and as adroitly as in Petersburg. She found an extremely pretty apartment, in one of the quiet but fashionable Paris streets; she made her husband such a dressing-gown as he had never owned before; she hired a trim maid, a capital cook, a smart footman; she got an enchanting carriage, a charming little piano. A week had not passed before she crossed a street, wore her shawl, opened her parasol, and put on her gloves in a style equal to that of the purest-blooded Parisienne. And she soon provided herself with acquaintances. At first, only Russians went to her house, then Frenchmen began to make their appearance, very amiable, courteous, unmarried, with beautiful manners and euphonious family names; they all talked fast and much, bowed with easy grace, and screwed up their eyes in a pleasing way; all of them had white teeth which gleamed beneath rosy lips,--and how they did understand the art of smiling! Every one of them brought his friends, and "la belle Madame de Lavretzki" soon became known from the Chaussée d'Antin to the Rue de Lille. In those days (this took place in 1836), that tribe of feuilleton and chronicle writers, which now swarm everywhere, like ants in an ant-hill which has been cut open, had not multiplied; but even then, a certain M----r Jules presented himself in Varvára Pávlovna's salon, a gentleman of insignificant appearance, with a scandalous reputation, insolent and base, like all duellists and beaten men. This M--r Jules was extremely repulsive to Varvára Pávlovna, but she received him because he scribbled for various journals, and incessantly alluded to her, calling her now
"Mme. de L * * * tzki," now "
Mme. de * * * cette grande dame Russe si distinguée, qui demeure rue de P."; narrating to all the world, that is to say, to a few hundred subscribers, who cared nothing whatever about "
Mme. de L * * * tzki," how that pretty and charming lady was a real Frenchwoman in mind (
une vraie française par l'esprit),--there is no higher encomium for the French,--what a remarkable musician she was, and how wonderfully she waltzed (Varvára Pávlovna, in reality, did waltz in 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, Varvára Pávlovna diligently frequented the theatres. She went into ecstasies over Italian music, and laughed at the ruins of Odra, yawned decorously at the Comédie Française, 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 Varvára Pávlovna was even presented at Court. Feódor Ivánitch, 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 Collège 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.