XI.


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