Lavretsky kept his eyes fixed on the girl who had made such an impression on him.  Suddenly the door of the box opened, and Mikhalevich entered.  The appearance of the man who was almost his only acquaintance in all Moscow—­his appearance in the company of the very girl who had absorbed his whole attention, seemed to Lavretsky strange and significant.  As he continued looking at the box, he remarked that all its occupants treated Mikhalevich like an old friend.  Lavretsky lost all interest in what was going on upon the stage; even Mochalof, although he was that evening “in the vein,” did not produce his wonted impression upon him.  During one very pathetic passage, Lavretsky looked almost involuntarily at the object of his admiration.  She was leaning forward, a red glow coloring her cheeks.  Her eyes were bent upon the stage, but gradually, under the influence of his fixed look, they turned and rested on him.  All night long those eyes haunted him.  At last, the carefully constructed dam was broken through.  He shivered and he burnt by turns, and the very next day he went to see Mikhalevich.  From him he learned that the name of the girl he admired so much was Varvara Pavlovna Korobine, that the elderly people who were with her in the box were her father and her mother, and that Mikhalevich had become acquainted with them the year before, during the period of his stay as tutor in Count N.’s family, near Moscow.  The enthusiast spoke of Varvara Pavlovna in the most eulogistic terms.  “This girl, my brother,” he exclaimed, in his peculiar, jerking kind of sing-song, “is an exceptional being, one endowed with genius, an artist in the true sense of the word, and besides all that, such an amiable creature.”  Perceiving from Lavretsky’s questions how great an impression Varvara Pavlovna had made upon him, Mikhalevich, of his own accord, proposed to make him acquainted with her, adding that he was on the most familiar terms with them, that the general was not in the least haughty, and that the mother was as unintellectual as she well could be.

Lavretsky blushed, muttered something vague, and took himself off.  For five whole days he fought against his timidity; on the sixth, the young Spartan donned an entirely new uniform, and placed himself at the disposal of Mikhalevich, who, as an intimate friend of the family, contented himself with setting his hair straight—­and the two companions set off together to visit the Karobines.

XIII

Varvara Pavlovna’s father, Pavel Petrovich Korobine, a retired major-general, had been on duty at St. Petersburg during almost the whole of his life.  In his early years he had enjoyed the reputation of being an able dancer and driller; but as he was very poor he had to act as aide-de-camp to two or three generals of small renown in succession, one of whom gave him his daughter in marriage, together with a dowry of 25,000 roubles.  Having made himself master of all the