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So long as the Princess Kubensky kept him with her, Glafira had hoped to obtain at least half of her father's property; and in her avarice, as well as in other points, she resembled her grandmother. Besides this, Glafira was jealous of her brother.
Anton would talk also at great length about his late mistress, Glafira Petrovna, saying how judicious and economical she was, how a certain gentleman, one of her young neighbors, had tried to gain her good graces for a time, and had begun to pay her frequent visits; and how in his honor she had deigned even to put on her gala-day cap with massacas ribbons, and her yellow dress made of tru-tru-lévantine; but how, a little later, having become angry with her neighbor, that gentleman, on account of his indiscreet question, "I suppose, madam, you doubtless have a good sum of money in hand?" she told her servants never to let him enter her house again and how she then ordered that, after her death, every thing, even to the smallest rag, should be handed over to Lavretsky.
When she could no longer speak, when the shadows of death were already on her face, her features expressed, as of old, bewildered resignation and constant, uncomplaining meekness; with the same dumb submissiveness she looked at Glafira, and just as Anna Pavlovna kissed her husband's hand on her deathbed, she kissed Glafira's, commending to her, to Glafira, her only son.
At the end of the garden was a small clear pool bordered with high reddish rushes. The traces of human life very quickly! pass away; Glafira Petrovna's estate had not had time to become quite wild, but already it seemed plunged in that quiet slumber in which everything reposes on earth where there is not the infection of man's restlessness.
Varvara Pavlovna conducted her attack very skillfully, without taking any step in advance, apparently completely absorbed in the bliss of the honeymoon, in the peaceful life of the country, in music and reading, she gradually worked Glafira up to such a point that she rushed one morning, like one possessed, into Lavretsky's study, and throwing a bunch of keys on the table, she declared that she was not equal to undertaking the management any longer, and did not want to stop in the place.
In the parcel there lay face to face a portrait, in pastel, of his father in his youth, with effeminate curls straying over his brow, with almond-shaped languid eyes and parted lips, and a portrait, almost effaced, of a pale woman in a white dress with a white rose in her hand his mother. Of herself, Glafira Petrovna had never allowed a portrait to be taken.
She kissed Lavretsky's hand and stood still in the doorway awaiting his orders. He positively could not recollect her name and did not even remember whether he had ever seen her. Her name, it appeared, was Apraxya; forty years before, Glafira Petrovna had put her out of the master's house and ordered that she should be a poultry woman.
With her usual silent humility, she gazed at Glafira; and as Anna Pavlovna on her death-bed had kissed the hand of Peter Andreich, so she pressed her lips to Glafira's hand, as she confided to Glafira's care her only child. So did this good and quiet being end her earthly career.
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