The "system" muddled the boy's brains, confused his ideas, and cramped
his mind; but, as far as his physical health was concerned, the new
kind of life acted on him beneficially. At first he fell ill with a
fever, but he soon recovered and became a fine fellow. His father grew
proud of him, and styled him in his curious language, "the child of
nature, my creation." When Fedia reached the age of sixteen, Ivan
Petrovich considered it a duty to inspire him in good time with
contempt for the female sex--and so the young Spartan, with the first
down beginning to appear upon his lips, timid in feeling, but with a
body full of blood, and strength, and energy, already tried to seem
careless, and cold, and rough.

Meanwhile time passed by. Ivan Petrovich spent the greater part of the
year at Lavriki--that was the name of his chief hereditary estate; but
in winter he used to go by himself to Moscow, where he put up at a
hotel, attended his club assiduously, aired his eloquence freely,
explained his plans in society, and more than ever gave himself out as
an Anglomaniac, a grumbler, and a statesman. But the year 1825 came
and brought with it much trouble[A]. Ivan Petrovich's intimate friends
and acquaintances underwent a heavy tribulation. He made haste to
betake himself far away into the country, and there he shut himself up
in his house. Another year passed and Ivan Petrovich suddenly broke
down, became feeble, and utterly gave way. His health having deserted
him, the freethinker began to go to church, and to order prayers to be
said for him[B]; the European began to steam himself in the Russian
bath, to dine at two o'clock, to go to bed at nine, to be talked to
sleep by the gossip of an old house-steward; the statesman burnt all
his plans and all his correspondence, trembled before the governor,
and treated the _Ispravnik_[C] with uneasy civility; the man of iron