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.