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Not a day passed without Glafira reminding her of her former position, and praising her for not forgetting herself. Malania Sergievna would willingly have acquiesced in these remindings and praisings, however bitter they might be but her child had been taken away from her. This drove her to despair. Glafira undertook the task. The child passed entirely into her keeping.
Ivan Petrovich's system was applied in its full development only to Fedia. The boy's education really underwent "a radical reform." His father undertook the sole direction of it himself. 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.
He, on his part, grew accustomed to her, and became fond of her, though he scarcely ever spoke to her, although in his caresses themselves a certain involuntary contempt showed itself. But it was her sister-in-law who made Malania suffer the most. Even during her mother's lifetime, Glafira had gradually succeeded in getting the entire management of the house into her own hands.
He entered into conversation with Anton; but the old man, as if purposely, would dwell on none but gloomy ideas. He told Lavretsky how Glafira Petrovna, just before her death, had bitten her own hand. It was late in the day before Lavretsky set out on his return. The music he had heard the night before came back into his mind, and the image of Liza dawned on his heart in all its sweet serenity.
But Glafira Petrovna would not return to Lavriki; she even advertised in the newspapers that the power-of-attorney was cancelled, a perfectly superfluous proceeding on her part. Lavretsky hid himself in a little Italian town; but for a long time he could not help mentally following his wife's movements. He learned from the newspapers that she had left Paris for Baden, as she had intended.
A little toilet table of inlaid wood, with brass fittings and a warped looking-glass in a tarnished frame stood in the window. Next to the bedroom was the little ikon room with bare walls and a heavy case of holy images in the corner; on the floor lay a threadbare rug spotted with wax; Glafira Petrovna used to pray bowing to the ground upon it.
"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.
At his interview with his sister, he informed her in the first words he spoke that he meant to introduce radical reforms on his property, and that for the future all his affairs would be conducted on a new system. Glafira made no reply, but she clenched her teeth and thought, "What is to become of me then?"
"Forgive farewell my quiet one!" he said, as he took leave of her for the last time, in the church. He wept as he threw a handful of earth into her grave. He did not long survive her not more than five years. In the winter of 1819, he died peacefully in Moscow, whither he had gone with Glafira and his grandson.
She had been even more irritated than Peter Andreich by her brother's marriage, so she determined to read the upstart a good lesson, and from the very first Malania Sergievna became her slave. And Malania, utterly without defence, weak in health, constantly a prey to trouble and alarm how could she have striven against the proud and strong-willed Glafira?
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