even at St. Petersburg--?" but he did not complete the question; a
fresh gaping fit seized him, and his whole frame shrank and shivered.
Sunny and sombre memories equally tormented him. He suddenly
recollected how a few days before, she had sat at the piano, when both
he and Ernest were present, and had sung "Old husband, cruel husband!"
He remembered the expression of her face, the strange brilliance of
her eyes, and the color in her cheeks--and he rose from his chair,
longing to go to them and say, "You were wrong to play your tricks on
me. My great grandfather used to hang his peasants on hooks by their
ribs, and my grandfather was a peasant himself,"--and then kill them
both. All of a sudden it would appear to him as if every thing that
had happened were a dream, even not so much as a dream, but just some
absurd fancy; as if he had only to give himself a shake and take a
look round--and he did look round; and as a hawk claws a captured
bird, so did his misery strike deeper and deeper into his heart. What
made things worse was that Lavretsky had hoped, in the course of a few
months, to find himself once more a father. His past, his future, his
whole life was poisoned.

At last he returned to Paris, went to a hotel, and sent Varvara
Pavlovna M. Ernest's note with the following letter:--

"The scrap of paper which accompanies this will explain every thing to
you. I may as well tell you that you do not seem to have behaved in
this matter with your usual tact. You, so careful a person, to drop
such important papers (poor Lavretsky had been preparing this phrase,
and fondling it, as it were, for several hours). I can see you no
more, and I suppose that you too can have no wish for an interview
with me. I assign you fifteen thousand roubles a year. I cannot give
you more. Send your address to the steward of my estate. And now do