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Fortunately for her, Gedeonovsky began to talk to Varvara and diverted her attention. Liza bent over her frame and watched her without being observed. "That woman," she thought, "was once loved by him." But then she immediately drove out of her mind even so much as the idea of Lavretsky. She felt her head gradually beginning to swim, and she was afraid of losing command over herself.
He began cautiously and indirectly unfolding this picture before Varvara Petrovna. He hinted that this would add a peculiarly noble note to their friendship... to their "idea." This would set the parents of the last generation and people of the last generation generally in such a disinterested and magnanimous light in comparison with the new frivolous and socialistic younger generation.
But Stepan Trofimovitch faltered in a weak voice that he really would like to go to sleep une heure, and then un bouillon, un the.... enfin il est si heureux. Varvara Petrovna waited a little, and stole out on tiptoe from behind the partition. She settled herself in the landlady's room, turned out the landlady and her husband, and told Dasha to bring her that woman.
He had already had time anyway to make some disagreeable though valuable observations, and seemed very apprehensive alone without Varvara Petrovna. He had an agitating suspicion that he had already been mentioned to the governor as a dangerous man. He knew for a fact that some of our ladies meant to give up calling on Varvara Petrovna.
"Those are very praiseworthy sentiments, very," said Maria Dmitrievna. "Is it long since you arrived? Have you seen him? But do sit down." "I arrived yesterday," answered Varvara Pavlovna, seating herself on a chair in an attitude expressive of humility. "I have seen my husband, and I have spoken with him." "Ah! Well, and what did he say?"
"Is that all you have come for?" said Varvara Petrovna, with a compassionate smile; but at once she drew her mother-of-pearl purse out of her pocket, took out a ten-rouble note and gave it to the unknown. The latter took it. Varvara Petrovna was much interested and evidently did not look upon her as an ordinary low-class beggar. "I say, she gave her ten roubles!" some one said in the crowd.
Doctors have all failed. Even a magic healer in the country failed." "Tell me of him," I urged. Varvara Ilinitchna went on only too gladly. She had found a listener. "It was a peasant woman. She healed so many people that, though she was quite illiterate, the medical faculty gave her a certificate to the effect that she could cure.
Among other things she announced that she was prepared to found a magazine of her own, and henceforward to devote her whole life to it. Seeing what it had come to, Stepan Trofimovitch became more condescending than ever, and on the journey began to behave almost patronisingly to Varvara Petrovna which she at once laid up in her heart against him.
Mademoiselle Mars had by that time quitted the stage, and Mademoiselle Rachel had not yet appeared there; but for all that Varvara Pavlovna none the less assiduously attended the theatres.
During this period Varvara Petrovna despatched perhaps hundreds of letters to the capital, full of prayers and supplications. She even stooped to some humiliation in this extremity. After his promotion the young man suddenly resigned his commission, but he did not come back to Skvoreshniki again, and gave up writing to his mother altogether.
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