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Not in vain was the whole personality of his young wife breathing with fascination; not in vain was her promise to the senses of a mysterious luxury of untold bliss: her fulfilment was richer than her promise. Barbara Paulovna had no mind to establish herself permanently at Lavriky. The idea of staying in that out-of-the-way corner of the steppes never entered her head for an instant.
Goethe, who had himself been very ill, wrote to a friend in Berlin: 'I thought to lose myself, and now I lose a friend, and with him the half of my existence. From every hand came tokens of sympathy for the widow. Maria Paulovna asked for the privilege of caring for the children. Queen Luise of Prussia sent a message of heartfelt condolence.
But again he was interrupted; first by an unusually severe illness, which brought him to death's door and left him for weeks in a condition of helpless languor, and then by the distractions incident to the arrival of the hereditary Prince of Weimar with his Russian bride, Maria Paulovna.
She went to fetch the shtchi, and, when Raskolnikoff had begun to eat, she seated herself on the sofa beside him and commenced to chatter, like a true country girl as she was. "Prascovia Paulovna means to report you to the police," said she. The young man's brow clouded. "To the police? Why?" "Because you don't pay and won't go. That's why."
Finally a tragi-comic story was reported with acclamation in all the papers; his wife played an unenviable part in it. Barbara Paulovna had become a notoriety. He ceased to follow her movements. Scepticism, half formed already by the experiences of his life and by his education, took complete possession of his heart, and he became indifferent to everything.
Then he leads forward his seven goddesses, who explain themselves and say pretty things about Russia. 'The Homage of the Arts' is in no sense a weighty production, but its graceful verse and well-turned compliments had the desired effect. Maria Paulovna was pleased with it. The reaction from these Russophile festivities fell heavily upon Schiller and he became gradually weaker.
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.
In the course of time a son was born to them, but the poor child did not live long it died in the spring, and in the summer Lavretsky took his wife abroad. One summer and autumn they spent in Germany and Switzerland, and for the winter they went to Paris. In Paris Barbara Paulovna made herself a little nest as quickly and as cleverly as in St. Petersburg.
He had shown himself in the Peninsula, at Quatre Bras and Waterloo and later in the Ten Days' Campaign, to be a capable and courageous soldier, but he possessed few of the qualities either of a statesman or a financier. He had married in 1816 Anna Paulovna, sister of the Tsar Alexander I, after his proposed marriage with the Princess Charlotte of England had been broken off.
This Narischkin, a pleasant and a well-informed man, was the husband of the famous Maria Paulovna. It was at the chief huntsman's splendid table that I met Calogeso Plato, now archbishop of Novgorod, and then chaplain to the empress. This monk was a Russian, and a master of ruses, understood Greek, and spoke Latin and French, and was what would be called a fine man.
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