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 assigning you fifteen thousand francs a year; I cannot give more.  Send your address to the office of the estate.  Do what you please.  Live where you please.  I wish you happiness!”

A long letter came back in reply:  it put the finishing touch—­his last doubts vanished.  She did not attempt to defend herself; her only desire was to see him; she besought him not to condemn her irrevocably.

Three days later Lavretsky left Paris.  For a time he followed his wife’s movements, as chronicled in Paris society papers.  He learnt that a daughter had been born to him.  Finally a tragi-comic story was reported with acclamation in all the papers; his wife played an unenviable part in it.  Barbara Paulovna had become a notoriety.  He ceased to follow her movements.  Scepticism, half formed already by the experiences of his life and by his education, took complete possession of his heart, and he became indifferent to everything.

Four years passed by till he felt himself able to return to his own country and to meet his own people.  He went to the town of O——­, where lived his cousin, Marya Dmitrievna Kalitin, with her two daughters, Elizabeth and Helena, and her aunt, Marfa Timofyevna Petrov.

III.—­A New Friendship

Lavretsky stayed a few days in O——­ before going to take up his residence, as he proposed doing, at Vassilyevskoe, a small estate of his some twenty miles distant.  Mounting the steps of Kalitin’s house to say good-bye before departing, he met Elizabeth coming down.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To service.  It is Sunday.”