She went into raptures over Italian music, yawned decorously at the Comedie Francaise, and wept at the acting of Madame Dorval in some ultra romantic melodrama; and a great thing--Liszt played twice in her salon, and was so kind, so simple--it was charming! In such agreeable sensations was spent the winter, at the end of which Varvara Pavlovna was even presented at court.

Fedor Ivanitch, for his part, was 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..