In this incisive little cameo Turgenev has told us everything about Varvara Pavlovna's upbringing. It is typical of Turgenev's method, of indicating with sparse, magic touches the _couche sociale_, so that we see working in the individual the forces that form him as a social type. Varvara Pavlovna, in her arts, is the worldly woman incarnate, sensual in her cold, polished being, in her luxurious elegance, in her inherently vulgar ambition. But Turgenev's instinctive _justesse_ is shown in the attractiveness of Varvara Pavlovna's bodily beauty. Remark that the more Turgenev unmasks her coldness and falsity the more he renders tribute to her bodily charm, to the subtle intelligence in her dark, oval, lovely face, with its splendid eyes, which gazed softly and attentively from under her fine brows. She is a worldly syren, lovely and desirable in her sensual fascination. But she is not too discriminating in the choice of her male adorers. His remembrance of all her deceptions stings Lavretsky when in her manœuvres to be reinstated in society she descends upon him suddenly at O----: "The first thing that struck him as he went into the entrance hall was a scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him; there were some high travelling-trunks standing there. The face of his groom, who ran out to meet him, seemed strange to him. Not stopping to analyse his impressions, he crossed the threshold of the drawing-room.... On his entrance there rose from the sofa a lady in a black silk dress with flounces, who, raising a cambric handkerchief to her pale face, made a few paces forward, bent her carefully dressed, perfumed head, and fell at his feet.... Then, only, he recognised her: this lady was his wife! "He caught his breath.... He leaned against the wall. "'_Théodore_, do not repulse me!' she said in French, and her voice cut to his heart like a knife. "He looked at her senselessly, and yet he noticed involuntarily at once that she had grown both whiter and fatter.