A Nobleman's Nest

descended from an ancient family of the nobility. The ancestral founder of the Lavrétzkys had come out of Prussia duri

great-grandfather, Andréi, a harsh, insolent, clever, and crafty man. Down to the day of which we are speaking, the fame of his arbitrary violence, of his fiendish disposition, his mad lavishness, and unquenchable thirst had not died out. He had been very stout and lofty of stature, swarthy of visage, and beardless; he lisped, and appeared to be sleepy; but th

drank themselves drunk, and carried off what they could, lauding and magnifying the amiable host; and the host, when he was not in a good humour, also magnified his guests-as drones and blackguards-but he was bored without them. Piótr Andréitch's wife was a meek person: he took her from a neighbouring family, at his father's choice and command; her name was Anna Pávlovna. She never interfered with anything, received visitors cordially, and was fond of going out herself, although powdering her hair, according to her own words, was death to her. They put a felt hood on your head, she was wont to narrate in her

e of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a certain M. Courtin de Vaucelles, an adroit and subtle intriguer,-the most fine fleur of the emigration, as she expressed it,-and ended by marrying this "fine-fleur" when she was almost seventy years of age; she transferred to his name her entire fortune, and soon afterward, rouged, scented with a

). He was compelled, perforce, to return to the country, to his father. Dirty, poor, tattered did his native nest appear to him: the dulness and soot of existence on the steppes offended him at every step; he was tormented with boredom; on the other hand, every one in the house, with the exception of his mother, looked upon him with unfriendly eyes. His father did not like his habits of the capital; his dress-suits, frilled shirts, books, his flute, his cleanliness, in which, not without r

ame sort, were sticking in his head,-but only in his head. Iván Petróvitch's former tutor, the retired abbé and encyclopedist, had contented himself with pouring the whole philosophy of the XVIII century into his pupil in a mass, and the latter went about brimful of it; it gained lodgment within him, without mingling with his blood, without penetrating into h

marriage. The return of Iván Petróvitch did not please her; so long as the Princess Kubenskóy had kept him with her, she had cherished the hope of receiving at least half of the parental estate: she resembled her grandmother in her avarice. Moreover, Glafíra was envious of her bro

prattle of the good woman, and gorging himself with preserves. It so happened, that among Anna Pávlovna's maids there was one very pretty girl, with clear, gentle eyes and delicate features, named Malánya, both clever and modest. She pleased Iván Petróvitch at first sight, and he fell in

the Petersburg philosopher and dandy. Tumult, shrieks, and uproar arose: Malánya was locked up in the lumber-room; Iván Petróvitch was summoned to his parent. Anna Pávlovna also hastened up at the outcry. She made an effort to pacify her husband, but Piótr Andréitch no longer listened to anything. Like a vulture he pounced upon his son, upbraided him with immorality, with impiety, with hypocrisy; incidentally

tr Andréitch to such a degree, that the latter stared with all his eyes, and was rendered dumb for a moment; but he immediately recovered himself, and just as he was, clad in a short coat lined with squirrel-skin, and with slippers on his bare feet, he flung himself with clenched fists upon Iván Petróvitch, who that day, as though expressly, had his hair dressed à la Titus, and had donned a new blue English dress-coat, boots with tassels, and dandified chamois trou

Iván Petróvitch wrote a caustically-cold and courteous letter to Piótr Andréitch, and betook himself to an estate where dwelt his second cousin, Dmítry Péstoff, and his sister, Márfa Timoféevna, already known to the reader. He told them everything, announced that he intended to go to Petersburg to seek a place, and requested them to give shelter to his wife, for a time at least. At the word "wife" he fell to weeping bitterly, and, despite his city breeding and his philosophy, he prostrated himself humbly, after the fashion of a Russian beggar, before the feet of his relatives, and even beat his brow against the floor. The Péstoffs, kind and compassionate people, gladly acceded to his request; he spent three weeks with them, in secret expectation of a reply from his father; but no reply came,-and none could come. Piótr Andréitch, on learning of his son's marriage, had taken to his bed, and had forbidden the n

but who had not yet succeeded in dying,-by way, in some measure, of repairing the injury which she had done to her nephew, recommended him to the good graces of all her friends, and gave him five thousand rubles,-almost her last farthing,-and a Lepíkovsky watch with his coat of arms in a garland of cupids. Three months had not elapsed, when he had already obtained a place in the Russian mission to London, and he went to sea on the first English ship which sailed (there was no thought of steamers in those days). A few months later, he received a letter from Péstoff. The kind-hearted squire congratulated Iván Petróvitch on the birth of a son, who had made his appearance in the world, in the village of Pokróvskoe, on August 20, 1807, and was named Feódor, in honour of the holy mart

erent localities; the average "quarter" bein

he sent her maternal