[Footnote A:  Literally, “souls,” i.e., male peasants.]

[Footnote B:  My daughter is going to make a capital match.]

XV.

And so his offer was accepted, but under certain conditions.  In the first place, Lavretsky must immediately leave the university.  Who could think of marrying a student?  And what an extraordinary idea, a landed proprietor, a rich man, at twenty-six years of age, to be taking lessons like a schoolboy!  In the second place, Varvara Pavlovna was to take upon herself the trouble of ordering and buying her trousseau.  She even chose the presents the bridegroom was to give.  She had very good taste, and a great deal of common sense, and she possessed a great liking for comfort, and no small skill in getting herself that comfort.  Lavretsky was particularly struck by this talent when, immediately after the wedding, he and his wife set off for Lavriki, travelling in a convenient carriage which she had chosen herself.  How carefully all their surroundings had been meditated over by Varvara Pavlovna! what prescience she had shown in providing them!  What charming travelling contrivances made their appearance in the various convenient corners! what delicious toilet boxes! what excellent coffee machines! and how gracefully did Varvara Pavlovna herself make the coffee in the morning!  But it must be confessed that Lavretsky was little fitted for critical observation just then.  He revelled in his happiness, he was intoxicated by his good fortune, he abandoned himself to it like a child—­he was, indeed, as innocent as a child, this young Hercules.  Not in vain did a charmed influence attach itself to the whole presence of his young wife; not in vain did she promise to the imagination a secret treasure of unknown delights.  She was even better than her promise.

When she arrived at Lavriki, which was in the very hottest part of the summer, the house seemed to her sombre and in bad order, the servants antiquated and ridiculous; but she did not think it necessary to say a word about this to her husband.  If she had intended to settle at Lavriki, she would have altered every thing there, beginning of course with the house; but the idea of staying in that out-of-the-way corner never, even for an instant, came into her mind.  She merely lodged in it, as she would have done in a tent, putting up with all its discomforts in the sweetest manner, and laughing at them pleasantly.

When Marfa Timofeevna came to see her old pupil, she produced a favorable impression on Varvara Pavlovna.  But Varvara was not at all to the old lady’s liking.  Nor did the young mistress of the house get on comfortably with Glafira Petrovna.  She herself would have been content to leave Glafira in peace, but the general was anxious to get his hand into the management of his son-in-law’s affairs.  To see after the property of so near a relative, he said, was an occupation that even a general might adopt without disgrace.  It is possible that Pavel Petrovich would not have disdained to occupy himself with the affairs of even an utter stranger.