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In 1859, three years after _Rudin_, appeared _A House of Gentlefolk_, in popular estimation the most perfect of Turgenev's works. This verdict, repeated by many critics, was gained no less by the pathos of Lavretsky's love story than by the faultless character drawing, the gentle, earnest, religious Liza[16] being balanced against the voluptuous, worldly coquette, Varvara Pavlovna. The story which chronicles how the latter, _la belle Madame de Lavretsky_, twists her honest, candid husband round her finger, how at length Lavretsky discovers her infidelities, and returns to Russia where he meets and falls in love with Liza, and how, on the false news of his wife's death, they confess their mutual passion -- when their dream is shattered by the dramatic reappearance of Varvara Pavlovna -- is characteristic of Turgenev's underlying sad philosophy.
[16] Liza, "the best impersonation possible of the average, thoroughly good and honest Russian girl of the times. " -- Kropotkin.