university, he only made acquaintance with one student, from whom he
took lessons in Latin. This student Mihalevitch by name, an enthusiast
and a poet, who loved Lavretsky sincerely, by chance became the means of
bringing about an important change in his destiny.

One day at the theatre--Motchalov was then at the height of his fame and
Lavretsky did not miss a single performance--he saw in a box in the
front tier a young girl, and though no woman ever came near his grim
figure without setting his heart beating, it had never beaten so
violently before. The young girl sat motionless, leaning with her elbows
on the velvet of the box; the light of youth and life played in every
feature of her dark, oval, lovely face; subtle intelligence was
expressed in the splendid eyes which gazed softly and attentively from
under her fine brows, in the swift smile on her expressive lips, in the
very pose of her head, her hands, her neck. She was exquisitely dressed.
Beside her sat a yellow and wrinkled woman of forty-five, with a low
neck, in a black headdress, with a toothless smile on her
intently-preoccupied and empty face, and in the inner recesses of the
box was visible an elderly man in a wide frock-coat and high cravat,
with an expression of dull dignity and a kind of ingratiating
distrustfulness in his little eyes, with dyed moustache and whiskers, a
large meaningless forehead and wrinkled cheeks, by every sign a retired
general. Lavretsky did not take his eyes off the girl who had made such
an impression on him; suddenly the door of the box opened and
Mihalevitch went in. The appearance of this man, almost his one
acquaintance in Moscow, in the society of the one girl who was absorbing
his whole attention, struck him as curious and significant. Continuing
to gaze into the box, he observed that all the persons in it treated
Mihalevitch as an old friend. The performance on the stage ceased to
interest Lavretsky, even Motchalov, though he was that evening in his