Until the return of Ivan Petrovich from abroad, Fedia remained, as we
have already said, in the hands of Glafira Petrovna. He was not yet
eight years old when his mother died. It was not every day that he had
been allowed to see her, but he had become passionately attached to
her. His recollections of her, especially of her pale and gentle face,
her mournful eyes, and her timid caresses, were indelibly impressed
upon his heart. It was but vaguely that he understood her position
in the house, but he felt that between him and her there existed a
barrier which she dared not and could not destroy. He felt shy of
his father, who, on his part, never caressed him. His grandfather
sometimes smoothed his hair and gave him his hand to kiss, but called
him a savage and thought him a fool. After Malania's death, his aunt
took him regularly in hand. Fedia feared her, feared her bright sharp
eyes, her cutting voice; he never dared to make the slightest noise in
her presence; if by chance he stirred ever so little on his chair, she
would immediately exclaim in her hissing voice, "Where are you going?
sit still!"
On Sundays, after mass, he was allowed to play--that is to say, a
thick book was given to him, a mysterious book, the work of a certain
Maksimovich-Ambodik, bearing the title of "Symbols and Emblems." In
this book there were to be found about a thousand, for the most part,
very puzzling pictures, with equally puzzling explanations in five
languages. Cupid, represented with a naked and chubby body, played a
great part in these pictures. To one of them, the title of which was
"Saffron and the Rainbow," was appended the explanation, "The effect
of this is great." Opposite another, which represented "A Stork,
flying with a violet in its beak," stood this motto, "To thee they
are all known;" and "Cupid, and a bear licking its cub," was styled
"Little by Little." Fedia used to pore over these pictures. He was
familiar with them all even to their minutest details. Some of
them--it was always the same ones--made him reflect, and excited his
imagination: of other diversions he knew nothing.
When the time came for teaching him languages and music, Glafira
Petrovna hired an old maid for a mere trifle, a Swede, whose eyes
looked sideways, like a hare's, who spoke French and German more
or less badly, played the piano so so, and pickled cucumbers to
perfection. In the company of this governess, of his aunt, and of an
old servant maid called Vasilievna, Fedia passed four whole years.
Sometimes he would sit in a corner with his "Emblems"--there he would
sit and sit. A scent of geraniums filled the low room, one tallow
candle burnt dimly, the cricket chirped monotonously as if it were
bored, the little clock ticked busily on the wall, a mouse scratched
stealthily and gnawed behind the tapestry; and the three old maids,
like the three Fates, knitted away silently and swiftly, the shadows
of their hands now scampering along, now mysteriously quivering in
the dusk; and strange, no less dusky, thoughts were being born in the
child's mind.
No one would have called Fedia an interesting child. He was rather
pale, but stout, badly built, and awkward--a regular moujik, to use
the expression employed by Glafira Petrovna. The pallor would soon
have vanished from his face if they had let him go out more into the
fresh air. He learnt his lessons pretty well, though he was often
idle. He never cried, but he sometimes evinced a savage obstinacy. At
those times no one could do any thing with him. Fedia did not love a
single one of the persons by whom he was surrounded. Alas for that
heart which has not loved in youth!
Such did Ivan Petrovich find him when he returned; and, without losing
time he at once began to apply his system to him.
"I want, above all, to make a man of him--_un homme_," he said to
Glafira Petrovna "and not only a man, but a Spartan." This plan he
began to carry out by dressing his boy in Highland costume. The
twelve-year-old little fellow had to go about with bare legs, and with
a cock's feather in his cap. The Swedish governess was replaced by a
young tutor from Switzerland, who was acquainted with all the niceties
of gymnastics. Music was utterly forbidden, as an accomplishment
unworthy of a man. Natural science, international law, and
mathematics, as well as carpentry, which was selected in accordance
with the advice of Jean Jacques Rousseau; and heraldry, which was
introduced for the maintenance of chivalrous ideas--these were the
subjects to which the future "man" had to give his attention. He had
to get up at four in the morning and take a cold bath immediately,
after which he had to run round a high pole at the end of a cord. He
had one meal a day, consisting of one dish; he rode on horseback, and
he shot with a cross-bow. On every fitting occasion he had to exercise
himself, in imitation of his father, in gaining strength of will; and
every evening he used to write, in a book reserved for that purpose,
an account of how he had spent the day, and what were his ideas on the
subject. Ivan Petrovich, on his side, wrote instructions for him
in French, in which he styled him _mon fils_, and addressed him as
_vous_. Fedia used to say "thou" to his father in Russian, but he did
not dare to sit down in his presence.
The "system" muddled the boy's brains, confused his ideas, and cramped
his mind; but, as far as his physical health was concerned, the new
kind of life acted on him beneficially. At first he fell ill with a
fever, but he soon recovered and became a fine fellow. His father grew
proud of him, and styled him in his curious language, "the child of
nature, my creation." When Fedia reached the age of sixteen, Ivan
Petrovich considered it a duty to inspire him in good time with
contempt for the female sex--and so the young Spartan, with the first
down beginning to appear upon his lips, timid in feeling, but with a
body full of blood, and strength, and energy, already tried to seem
careless, and cold, and rough.
Meanwhile time passed by. Ivan Petrovich spent the greater part of the
year at Lavriki--that was the name of his chief hereditary estate; but
in winter he used to go by himself to Moscow, where he put up at a
hotel, attended his club assiduously, aired his eloquence freely,
explained his plans in society, and more than ever gave himself out as
an Anglomaniac, a grumbler, and a statesman. But the year 1825 came
and brought with it much trouble[A]. Ivan Petrovich's intimate friends
and acquaintances underwent a heavy tribulation. He made haste to
betake himself far away into the country, and there he shut himself up
in his house. Another year passed and Ivan Petrovich suddenly broke
down, became feeble, and utterly gave way. His health having deserted
him, the freethinker began to go to church, and to order prayers to be
said for him[B]; the European began to steam himself in the Russian
bath, to dine at two o'clock, to go to bed at nine, to be talked to
sleep by the gossip of an old house-steward; the statesman burnt all
his plans and all his correspondence, trembled before the governor,
and treated the _Ispravnik_[C] with uneasy civility; the man of iron
will whimpered and complained whenever he was troubled by a boil, or
when his soup had got cold before he was served with it. Glafira again
ruled supreme in the house; again did inspectors, overseers[D],
and simple peasants begin to go up the back staircase to the rooms
occupied by the "old witch"--as she was called by the servants of the
house.
[Footnote A: Arising from the conspiracy of the "Decembrists" and
their attempts at a revolution, on the occasion of the death of
Alexander I., and the accession of Nicholas to the throne.]
[Footnote B: _Molebni_: prayers in which the name of the person who
has paid for them is mentioned.]
[Footnote C: Inspector of rural police.]
[Footnote D: _Prikashchiki_ and _Burmistrui_: two classes of
overseers, the former dealing with economical matters only, the latter
having to do with the administrative department also.]
The change which had taken place in Ivan Petrovich, produced a strong
impression on the mind of his son. He had already entered on his
nineteenth year; and he had begun to think for himself, and to shake
off the weight of the hand which had been pressing him down. Even
before this he had remarked how different were his father's deeds from
his words; the wide and liberal theories he professed from the hard
and narrow despotism he practiced; but he had not expected so abrupt
a transformation. In his old age the egotist revealed himself in his
full nature. The young Lavretsky was just getting ready to go to
Moscow, with a view to preparing himself for the university, when a
new and unexpected misfortune fell on the head of Ivan Petrovich. In
the course of a single day the old man became blind, hopelessly blind.
Distrusting the skill of Russian medical men, he did all he could to
get permission to travel abroad. It was refused. Then, taking his son
with him, he wandered about Russia for three whole years, trying one
doctor after another, incessantly journeying from place to place, and,
by his impatient fretfulness, driving his doctors, his son, and his
servants to the verge of despair. Utterly used up[A], he returned to
Lavriki a weeping and capricious infant. Days of bitterness ensued,
in which all suffered at his hands. He was quiet only while he was
feeding. Never had he eaten so much, nor so greedily. At all other
moments he allowed neither himself nor any one else to be at peace. He
prayed, grumbled at fate, found fault with himself, with his system,
with politics, with all which he used to boast of, with all that he
had ever set up as a model for his son. He would declare that he
believed in nothing, and then he would betake himself again to prayer;
he could not bear a single moment of solitude, and he compelled
his servants constantly to sit near his bed day and night, and to
entertain him with stories, which he was in the habit of interrupting
by exclamations of, "You're all telling lies!" or, "What utter
nonsense!"
[Footnote A: Literally, "a regular rag."]
Glafira Petrovna had the largest share in all the trouble he gave. He
was absolutely unable to do without her; and until the very end she
fulfilled all the invalid's caprices, though sometimes she was unable
to reply immediately to what he said, for fear the tone of her voice
should betray the anger which was almost choking her. So he creaked
on for two years more, and at length one day in the beginning of the
month of May, he died. He had been carried out to the balcony, and
planed there in the sun. "Glasha! Glashka! broth, broth, you old
idi--," lisped his stammering tongue; and then, without completing the
last word, it became silent forever. Glafira, who had just snatched
the cup of broth from the hands of the major-domo, stopped short,
looked her brother in the face, very slowly crossed herself, and went
silently away. And his son, who happened also to be on the spot, did
not say a word either, but bent over the railing of the balcony, and
gazed for a long time into the garden, all green and fragrant, all
sparkling in the golden sunlight of spring. He was twenty-three years
old; how sadly, how swiftly had those years passed by unmarked! Life
opened out before him now.