Until Ivan Petrovitch’s return from abroad, Fedya was, as already
related, in the hands of Glafira Petrovna. He was not eight years
old when his mother died; he did not see her every day, and loved her
passionately; the memory of her, of her pale and gentle face, of her
dejected looks and timid caresses, was imprinted on his heart for
ever; but he vaguely understood her position in the house; he felt that
between him and her there existed a barrier which she dared not and
could not break down. He was shy of his father, and, indeed, Ivan
Petrovitch on his side never caressed him; his grandfather sometimes
patted him on the head and gave him his hand to kiss, but he thought him
and called him a little fool. After the death of Malanya Sergyevna, his
aunt finally got him under her control. Fedya was afraid of her: he was
afraid of her bright sharp eyes and her harsh voice; he dared not utter
a sound in her presence; often, when he only moved a little in his
chair, she would hiss out at once: “What are you doing? sit still.”
On Sundays, after mass, he was allowed to play, that is to say, he
was given a thick book, a mysterious book, the work of a certain
Maimovitch-Ambodik, entitled “Symbols and Emblems.” This book was a
medley of about a thousand mostly very enigmatical pictures, and as many
enigmatical interpretations of them in five languages. Cupid--naked and
very puffy in the body--played a leading part in these illustrations.
In one of them, under the heading, “Saffron and the Rainbow,” the
interpretation appended was: “Of this, the influence is vast;” opposite
another, entitled “A heron, flying with a violet in his beak,” stood the
inscription: “To thee they are all known.” “Cupid and the bear licking
his fur” was inscribed, “Little by little.” Fedya used to ponder over
these pictures; he knew them all to the minutest details; some of them,
always the same ones, used to set him dreaming, and afforded him food
for meditation; he knew no other amusements. When the time came to
teach him languages and music, Glafira Petrovna engaged, for next to
nothing, an old maid, a Swede, with eyes like a hare’s, who spoke French
and German with mistakes in every alternate word, played after a fashion
on the piano, and above all, salted cucumbers to perfection. In
the society of this governess, his aunt, and the old servant maid,
Vassilyevna, Fedya spent four whole years. Often he would sit in the
corner with his “Emblems”; he sat there endlessly; there was a scent
of geranium in the low pitched room, the solitary candle burnt dim, the
cricket chirped monotonously, as though it were weary, the little clock
ticked away hurriedly on the wall, a mouse scratched stealthily and
gnawed at the wall-paper, and the three old women, like the Fates,
swiftly and silently plied their knitting needles, the shadows raced
after their hands and quivered strangely in the half darkness, and
strange, half dark ideas swarmed in the child’s brain. No one would
have called Fedya an interesting child; he was rather pale, but stout,
clumsily built and awkward--a thorough peasant, as Glafira Petrovna
said; the pallor would soon have vanished from his cheeks, if he had
been allowed oftener to be in the open air. He learnt fairly quickly,
though he was often lazy; he never cried, but at times he was overtaken
by a fit of savage obstinacy; then no one could soften him. Fedya loved
no one among those around him.... Woe to the heart that has not loved in
youth!
Thus Ivan Petrovitch found him, and without loss of time he set to work
to apply his system to him.
“I want above all to make a man, un homme, of him,” he said to Glafira
Petrovna, “and not only a man, but a Spartan.” Ivan Petrovitch began
carrying out his intentions by putting his son in a Scotch kilt; the
twelve-year-old boy had to go about with bare knees and a plume stuck
in his Scotch cap. The Swedish lady was replaced by a young Swiss tutor,
who was versed in gymnastics to perfection. Music, as a pursuit unworthy
of a man, was discarded. The natural sciences, international law,
mathematics, carpentry, after Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s precept, and
heraldry, to encourage chivalrous feelings, were what the future “man”
was to be occupied with. He was waked at four o’clock in the morning,
splashed at once with cold water and set to running round a high pole
with a cord; he had only one meal a day, consisting of a single
dish; rode on horseback; shot with a cross-bow; at every convenient
opportunity he was exercised in acquiring after his parent’s example
firmness of will, and every evening he inscribed in a special book an
account of the day and his impressions; and Ivan Petrovitch on his side
wrote him instructions in French in which he called him mon fils, and
addressed him as vous. In Russian Fedya called his father thou, but
did not dare to sit down in his presence. The “system” dazed the boy,
confused and cramped his intellect, but his health on the other hand was
benefited by the new manner of his life; at first he fell into a fever
but soon recovered and began to grow stout and strong. His father was
proud of him and called him in his strange jargon “a child of nature,
my creation.” When Fedya had reached his sixteenth year, Ivan Petrovitch
thought it his duty in good time to instil into him a contempt for the
female sex; and the young Spartan, with timidity in his heart and the
first down on his lip, full of sap and strength and young blood, already
tried to seem indifferent, cold, and rude.
Meanwhile time was passing. Ivan Petrovitch spent the great part of the
year in Lavriky (that was the name of the principal estate inherited
from his ancestors). But in the winter he used to go to Moscow alone;
there he stayed at a tavern, diligently visited the club, made speeches
and developed his plans in drawing-rooms, and in his behaviour was more
than ever Anglomaniac, grumbling and political. But the year 1825 came
and brought much sorrow. Intimate friends and acquaintances of Ivan
Petrovitch underwent painful experiences. Ivan Petrovitch made haste to
withdraw into the country and shut himself up in his house. Another year
passed by, and suddenly Ivan Petrovitch grew feeble, and ailing; his
health began to break up. He, the free-thinker, began to go to church
and have prayers put up for him; he, the European, began to sit in
steam-baths, to dine at two o’clock, to go to bed at nine, and to doze
off to the sound of the chatter of the old steward; he, the man of
political ideas, burnt all his schemes, all his correspondence, trembled
before the governor, and was uneasy at the sight of the police-captain;
he, the man of iron will, whimpered and complained, when he had a
gumboil or when they gave him a plate of cold soup. Glafira Petrovna
again took control of everything in the house; once more the overseers,
bailiffs and simple peasants began to come to the back stairs to speak
to the “old witch,” as the servants called her. The change in Ivan
Petrovitch produced a powerful impression on his son. He had now reached
his nineteenth year, and had begun to reflect and to emancipate himself
from the hand that pressed like a weight upon him. Even before this
time he had observed a little discrepancy between his father’s words and
deeds, between his wide liberal theories and his harsh petty despotism;
but he had not expected such a complete breakdown. His confirmed egoism
was patent now in everything. Young Lavretsky was getting ready to go
to Moscow, to prepare for the university, when a new unexpected calamity
overtook Ivan Petrovitch; he became blind, and hopelessly blind, in one
day.
Having no confidence in the skill of Russian doctors, he began to make
efforts to obtain permission to go abroad. It was refused. Then he took
his son with him and for three whole years was wandering about Russia,
from one doctor to another, incessantly moving from one town to another,
and driving his physicians, his son, and his servants to despair by
his cowardice and impatience. He returned to Lavriky a perfect wreck, a
tearful and capricious child. Bitter days followed, every one had much
to put up with from him. Ivan Petrovitch was only quiet when he was
dining; he had never been so greedy and eaten so much; all the rest
of the time he gave himself and others no peace. He prayed, cursed his
fate, abused himself, abused politics, his system, abused everything he
had boasted of and prided himself upon, everything he had held up to his
son as a model; he declared that he believed in nothing and then began
to pray again; he could not put up with one instant of solitude, and
expected his household to sit by his chair continually day and night,
and entertain him with stories, which he constantly interrupted with
exclamations, “You are for ever lying,... a pack of nonsense!”
Glafira Petrovna was specially necessary to him; he absolutely could not
get on without her--and to the end she always carried out every whim of
the sick man, though sometimes she could not bring herself to answer
at once for fear the sound of her voice should betray her inward anger.
Thus he lingered on for two years and died on the first day of May,
when he had been brought out on to the balcony into the sun. “Glasha,
Glashka! soup, soup, old foo----” his halting tongue muttered and before he
had articulated the last word, it was silent for ever. Glafira Petrovna,
who had only just taken the cup of soup from the hands of the steward,
stopped, looked at her brother’s face, slowly made a large sign of the
cross and turned away in silence; and his son, who happened to be there,
also said nothing; he leaned on the railing of the balcony and gazed a
long while into the garden, all fragrant and green, and shining in the
rays of the golden sunshine of spring. He was twenty-three years old;
how terribly, how imperceptibly quickly those twenty-three years had
passed by!... Life was opening before him.