Chapter XVI


Happening to go one day in Varvara Pavlovna's absence into her boudoir,
Lavretsky saw on the floor a carefully folded little paper. He
mechanically picked it up, unfolded it, and read the following note,
written in French:

"Sweet angel Betsy (I never can make up my mind to call you Barbe or
Varvara), I waited in vain for you at the corner of the boulevard; come
to our little room at half-past one to-morrow. Your stout good-natured
husband (ton gros bonhomme de mari) is usually buried in his books at
that time; we will sing once more the song of your poet Pouskine (de
botre poete Pouskine) that you taught me: 'Old husband, cruel husband!'
A thousand kisses on your little hands and feet. I await you.

Ernest."

Lavretsky did not at once understand what he had read; he read it a
second time, and his head began to swim, the ground began to sway under
his feet like the deck of a ship in a rolling sea. He began to cry out
and gasp and weep all at the same instant.

He was utterly overwhelmed. He had so blindly believed in his wife; the
possibility of deception, of treason, had never presented itself to his
mind. This Ernest, his wife's lover, was a fair-haired pretty boy of
three-and-twenty, with a little turned-up nose and refined little
moustaches, almost the most insignificant of all her acquaintances. A
few minutes passed, half an hour passed, Lavretsky still stood, crushing
the fatal note in his hands, and gazing senselessly at the floor; across