hospitable and very fond of coursing with dogs. He was over thirty when
he inherited from his father a property of two thousand serfs in capital
condition; but he had soon dissipated it, and had partly mortgaged his
estate, and demoralised his servants. All sorts of people of low
position, known and unknown, came crawling like cockroaches from all
parts into his spacious, warm, ill-kept halls. All this mass of people
ate what they could get, but always had their fill, drank till they were
drunk, and carried off what they could, praising and blessing their
genial host; and their host too when he was out humour blessed his
guests--for a pack of sponging toadies, but he was bored when he was
without them. Piotr Andreitch's wife was a meek-spirited creature; he
had taken her from a neighbouring family by his father's choice and
command; her name was Anna Pavlovna. She never interfered in anything,
welcomed guests cordially, and readily paid visits herself, though being
powdered, she used to declare, would be the death of her. "They put,"
she used to say in her old age, "a fox's brush on your head, comb all
the hair up over it, smear it with grease, and dust it over with flour,
and stick it up with iron pins,--there's no washing it off afterwards;
but to pay visits without powder was quite impossible--people would be
offended. Ah, it was a torture!"

She liked being driven with fast-trotting horses, and was ready to play
cards from morning till evening, and would always keep the score of the
pennies she had lost or won hidden under her hand when her husband came
near the card-table; but all her dowry, her whole fortune, she had put
absolutely at his disposal. She bore him two children, a son Ivan, the
father of Fedor, and a daughter Glafira. Ivan was not brought up at
home, but lived with a rich old maiden aunt, the Princess Kubensky; she
had fixed on him for her heir (but for that his father would not have
let him go). She dressed him up like a doll, engaged all kinds of