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.

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
a kind of tempest of darkness pale shapes hovered about him; his
heart was numb with anguish; he seemed to be falling, falling--and a
bottomless abyss was opening at his feet. A familiar light rustle of a
silk dress roused him from his numbn