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From him he learnt that the name of the beauty was Varvara Pavlovna Korobyin; that the old people sitting with her in the box were her father and mother; and that he, Mihalevitch, had become acquainted with them a year before, while he was staying at Count N.'s, in the position of a tutor, near Moscow. The enthusiast spoke in rapturous praise of Varvara Pavlovna.
That is my last word to you." The same day she went away to her own little property, and in a week General Korobyin was there, and with a pleasant melancholy in his looks and movements he took the superintendence of the whole property into his hands. In the month of September, Varvara Pavlovna carried her husband off to Petersburg. Varvara Pavlovna attracted guests as a fire attracts moths.
The new mistress did not get on with Glafira Petrovna either; she would have left her in peace, but old Korobyin wanted to have a hand in the management of his son-in-law's affairs; to superintend the property of such a near relative, he said, was not beneath the dignity of even a general. One must add that Pavel Petrovitch would not have been above managing the property even of a total stranger.
Varvara Pavlovna's father, Pavel Petrovitch Korobyin, a retired general-major, had spent his whole time on duty in Petersburg. He had had the reputation in his youth of a good dancer and driller. Through poverty, he had served as adjutant to two or three generals of no distinction, and had married the daughter of one of them with a dowry of twenty-five thousand roubles.
Under the influence of his persistent gaze her eyes slowly turned and rested on him. All night he was haunted by those eyes. The skilfully constructed barriers were broken down at last; he was in a shiver and a fever, and the next day he went to Mihalevitch, from whom he learnt that her name was Barbara Paulovna Korobyin.
Mihalevitch offered to introduce him; Lavretsky blushed, muttered something unintelligible, and ran away. For five whole days he struggled with his timidity; on the sixth he got into a new uniform and placed himself at Mihalevitch's disposal. Paul Petrovitch Korobyin was a retired major-general.
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