teachers for him, and put him in charge of a tutor, a Frenchman, who had
been an abbe, a pupil of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a certain M. Courtin de
Vaucelles, a subtle and wily intriguer--the very, as she expressed it,
fine fleur of emigration--and finished at almost seventy years old by
marrying this "fine fleur," and making over all her property to him.
Soon afterwards, covered with rouge, and redolent of perfume a la
Richelieu, surrounded by negro boys, delicate-shaped greyhounds and
shrieking parrots, she died on a crooked silken divan of the time of
Louis XV., with an enamelled snuff-box of Petitot's workmanship in her
hand--and died, deserted by her husband; the insinuating M. Courtin had
preferred to remove to Paris with her money. Ivan had only reached his
twentieth year when this unexpected blow (we mean the princess's
marriage, not her death) fell upon him; he did not care to stay in his
aunt's house, where he found himself suddenly transformed from a wealthy
heir to a poor relation; the society in Petersburg in which he had grown
up was closed to him; he felt an aversion for entering the government
service in the lower grades, with nothing but hard work and obscurity
before him,--this was at the very beginning of the reign of the Emperor
Alexander. He was obliged reluctantly to return to the country to his
father. How squalid, poor, and wretched his parents' home seemed to him!
The stagnation and sordidness of life in the country offended him at
every step. He was consumed with ennui. Moreover, every one in the
house, except his mother, looked at him with unfriendly eyes. His father
did not like his town manners, his swallow-tail coats, his frilled
shirt-fronts, his books, his flute, his fastidious ways, in which he
detected--not incorrectly--a disgust for his surroundings; he was for
ever complaining and grumbling at his son. "Nothing here," he used to
say, "is to his taste; at table he is all in a fret, and doesn't eat; he
can't bear the heat and close smell of the room; the sight of folks
drunk upsets him, one daren't beat any one before him; he doesn't want