new and unexpected misfortune fell on the head of Ivan Petrovich. In
the course of a single day the old man became blind, hopelessly blind.

Distrusting the skill of Russian medical men, he did all he could to
get permission to travel abroad. It was refused. Then, taking his son
with him, he wandered about Russia for three whole years, trying one
doctor after another, incessantly journeying from place to place, and,
by his impatient fretfulness, driving his doctors, his son, and his
servants to the verge of despair. Utterly used up[A], he returned to
Lavriki a weeping and capricious infant. Days of bitterness ensued,
in which all suffered at his hands. He was quiet only while he was
feeding. Never had he eaten so much, nor so greedily. At all other
moments he allowed neither himself nor any one else to be at peace. He
prayed, grumbled at fate, found fault with himself, with his system,
with politics, with all which he used to boast of, with all that he
had ever set up as a model for his son. He would declare that he
believed in nothing, and then he would betake himself again to prayer;
he could not bear a single moment of solitude, and he compelled
his servants constantly to sit near his bed day and night, and to
entertain him with stories, which he was in the habit of interrupting
by exclamations of, "You're all telling lies!" or, "What utter
nonsense!"

[Footnote A: Literally, "a regular rag."]

Glafira Petrovna had the largest share in all the trouble he gave. He
was absolutely unable to do without her; and until the very end she
fulfilled all the invalid's caprices, though sometimes she was unable
to reply immediately to what he said, for fear the tone of her voice
should betray the anger which was almost choking her. So he creaked