, and seemed to have become
more careful about money than ever. She was more than ever given to
saving money and being angry at Stepan Trofimovitch's losses at cards.

At last, in the April of this year, she received a letter from Paris
from Praskovya Ivanovna Drozdov, the widow of the general and the
friend of Varvara Petrovna's childhood. Praskovya Ivanovna, whom Varvara
Petrovna had not seen or corresponded with for eight years, wrote,
informing her that Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had become very intimate
with them and a great friend of her only daughter, Liza, and that he was
intending to accompany them to Switzerland, to Verney-Montreux,
though in the household of Count K. (a very influential personage in
Petersburg), who was now staying in Paris. He was received like a son
of the family, so that he almost lived at the count's. The letter was
brief, and the object of it was perfectly clear, though it contained
only a plain statement of the above-mentioned facts without drawing any
inferences from them. Varvara Petrovna did not pause long to consider;
she made up her mind instantly, made her preparations, and taking with
her her protegee, Dasha (Shatov's sister), she set off in the middle of
April for Paris, and from there went on to Switzerland. She returned in
July, alone, leaving Dasha with the Drozdovs. She brought us the news
that the Drozdovs themselves had promised to arrive among us by the end
of August.

The Drozdovs, too, were landowners of our province, but the official
duties of General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov (who had been a friend
of Varvara Petrovna's and a colleague of her husband's) had always
prevented them from visiting their magnificent estate. On the death of
the general, which had taken place the year before, the inconsolable
widow had gone abroad with her daughter, partly in order to try the
grape-cure which she proposed to carry out at Verney-Montreux during the
latter half of the summer. On their return to Russia they intended to
settle in our province for good. She had a large house in the town which
had stood empty for many years with the windows nailed up. They were
wealthy people. Praskovya Ivanovna had been, in her first marriage, a
Madame Tushin, and like her school-friend, Varvara Petrovna, was the
daughter of a government contractor of the old school, and she too had
been an heiress at her marriage. Tushin, a retired cavalry captain, was
also a man of means, and of some ability. At his