He  was  utterly  overwhelmed.  He  had  so
blindly  believed  in  his  wife  ;  the  possibility  of
deception,  of  treason,  had  never  presented  itself
to  his  mind.  This  Ernest,  his  wife's  lover,  was
a  fair-haired  pretty  boy  of  three-and-twenty,
with  a  little  turned-up  nose  and  refined  little
moustaches,  almost  the  most  insignificant  of
all  her  acquaintances.  A  few  minutes  passed,
half  an  hour  passed,  Lavretsky  still  stood,
crushing  the  fatal  note  in  his  hands,  and  gazing
senselessly  at  the  floor  ;  across  a  kind  of
tempest  of  darkness  pale  shapes  hovered  about
him  ;  his  heart  was  numb  with  anguish  ;  he
seemed  to  be  falling,  falling — and  a  bottomless
abyss  was  opening  at  his  feet.  A  familiar
light  rustle  of  a  silk  dress  roused  him  from  his
numbness  ;  Varvara  Pavlovna  in  her  hat  and
shawl  was  returning  in  haste  from  her  walk.
Lavretsky  trembled  all  over  and  rushed  away  ;
he  felt  that  at  that  instant  he  was  capable  of
tearing  her  to  pieces,  beating  her  to  death,  as
a  peasant  might  do,  strangling  her  with  his
own  hands.  Varvara  Pavlovna  in  amazement
tried  to  stop  him  ;  he  could  only  whisper,
'  Betsy,' — and  ran  out  of  the  house.
