streets in Paris; she embroidered her husband such a dressing-gown as he had never worn before; engaged a coquettish waiting maid, an excellent cook, and a smart footman, procured a fascinating carriage, and an exquisite piano.  Before a week had passed, she crossed the street, wore her shawl, opened her parasol, and put on her gloves in a manner equal to the most true-born Parisian.  And she soon drew round herself acquaintances.  At first, only Russians visited her, afterwards Frenchmen too, very agreeable, polite, and unmarried, with excellent manners and well-sounding names; they all talked a great deal and very fast, bowed easily, grimaced agreeably; their white teeth flashed under their rosy lips—­and how they could smile!  All! of them brought their friends, and la belle Madame de Lavretsky was soon known from Chausee d’Antin to Rue de Lille.  In those days—­it was in 1836—­there had not yet arisen the tribe of journalists and reporters who now swarm on all sides like ants in an ant-hill; but even then there was seen in Varvara Pavlovna’s salon a certain M. Jules, a gentleman of unprepossessing exterior, with a scandalous reputation, insolent and mean, like all duelists and men who have been beaten.  Varvara Pavlovna felt a great aversion to this M. Jules, but she received him because he wrote for various journals, and was incessantly mentioning her, calling her at one time Madame de L-----tski, at another Madame de -----, cette grande dame russe si distinguee, qui demeure rue de P----- and telling all the world, that is, some hundreds of readers who had nothing to do with Madame de L-----tski, how charming and delightful this lady was; a true Frenchwoman in intelligence (une vraie francaise par l’esprit)—­ Frenchmen have no higher praise than this—­what an extraordinary musician she was, and how marvelously she waltzed (Varvara Pavlovna did in fact waltz so that she drew all her hearts to the hem of her light flying skirts)—­in a word, he spread her fame through the world, and, whatever one may say, that is pleasant.  Mademoiselle Mars had already left the stage, and Mademoiselle Rachel had not yet made her appearance; nevertheless, Varvara Pavlovna was assiduous in visiting the theatres.  She went into raptures over Italian music, yawned decorously at the Comedie Francaise, and wept at the acting of Madame Dorval in some ultra romantic melodrama; and a great thing—­Liszt played twice in her salon, and was so kind, so simple—­it was charming!  In such agreeable sensations was spent the winter, at the end of which Varvara Pavlovna was even presented at court.  Fedor Ivanitch, for his part, was not bored, though his life, at times, weighed rather heavily on him—­because it was empty.  He read the papers, listened to the lectures at the Sorbonne and the College de France, followed the debates in the Chambers, and set to work on a translation of a well-known scientific treatise on irrigation.  “I am not wasting my time,” he thought, “it is all of use; but next winter I must, without fail, return to Russia and set to work.”  It is difficult to say whether he had any clear idea of precisely what this work would consist of; and there is no telling whether he would have succeeded in going to Russia in the winter; in the meantime, he was going with his wife to Baden . .  An unexpected incident broke up all his plans.