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I didn’t, of course, expect him to come often, knowing what a lot he has to do as it is, vous comprenez, cette affaire et la mort terrible de votre papa. But I suddenly heard he’d been here again, not to see me but to see Lise. That’s six days ago now. He came, stayed five minutes, and went away. And I didn’t hear of it till three days afterwards, from Glafira, so it was a great shock to me.
Even her fondest hopes came to nothing; her husband considered that it was much more suitable to intrust Fedya's education to Glafira. Ivan Petrovitch's poor wife could not bear this blow, she could not bear a second separation; in a few days, without a murmur, she quietly passed away. All her life she had never been able to oppose anything, and she did not struggle against her illness.
Her brother's marriage had incensed her even more than Piotr Andreitch; she set herself to give the upstart a lesson, and Malanya Sergyevna from the very first hour was her slave. And, indeed, how was she to contend against the masterful, haughty Glafira, submissive, constantly bewildered, timid, and weak in health as she was?
Sorrow for the past melted away in his mind as the snow melts in spring; but, strange to say, never had the love of home exercised so strong or so profound an influence upon him. In the course of a fortnight Lavretsky succeeded in setting Glafira Petrovna's little house in order, and in trimming the court-yard and the garden.
The honorary overseer, Zherbenev, invited all who attended the examination to his house to dinner. Only Voronok refused the invitation. But Zherbenev invited others to the dinner the general's widow, Glafira Pavlovna, and Kerbakh among them. It was a long and lavish dinner. The guests drank much during and after the meal. Every one got tipsy. Doulebov alone remained sober.
The small manor-house to which Lavretsky had come and in which two years before Glafira Petrovna had breathed her last, had been built in the preceding century of solid pine-wood; it looked ancient, but it was still strong enough to stand another fifty years or more.
He indulged in a vivid picture of the confusion of the expelled general, the useless airs which he would put on, and, in spite of his sorrow, he was conscious of a certain malicious satisfaction. At the same time he wrote to Glafira Petrovna, asking her to return to Lavriki, and drew up a power-of-attorney in her name.
Lavretsky, having been suitably prepared beforehand, at once agreed to her departure. This Glafira Petrovna had not anticipated. "Very well," she said, and her face darkened, "I see that I am not wanted here! I know who is driving me out of the home of my fathers. Only you mark my words, nephew; you will never make a home anywhere, you will come to be a wanderer for ever.
But there was your grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, built himself a palace of stone, but he never grew rich; everything with him went badly, and he lived worse than his father by far, and he got no pleasure from it for himself, but spent all his money, and now there is nothing to remember him by not a silver spoon has come down from him, and we have Glafira Petrovna's management to thank for all that is saved.
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 a perfection.
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