to go into the government service; he's weakly, as you see, in health;
fie upon him, the milksop! And all this because he's got his head full
of Voltaire." The old man had a special dislike to Voltaire, and the
"fanatic" Diderot, though he had not read a word of their words; reading
was not in his line. Piotr Andreitch was not mistaken; his son's head
for that matter was indeed full of both Diderot and Voltaire, and not
only of them alone, of Rousseau too, and Helvetius, and many other
writers of the same kind--but they were in his head only. The retired
abbe and encyclopedist who had been Ivan Petrovitch's tutor had taken
pleasure in pouring all the wisdom of the eighteenth century into his
pupil, and he was simply brimming over with it; it was there in him, but
without mixing in his blood, nor penetrating to his soul, nor shaping
itself in any firm convictions. . . . But, indeed, could one expect
convictions from a young man of fifty years ago, when even at the
present day we have not succeeded in attaining them? The guests, too,
who frequented his father's house, were oppressed by Ivan Petrovitch's
presence; he regarded them with loathing, they were afraid of him; and
with his sister Glafira, who was twelve years older than he, he could
not get on at all. This Glafira was a strange creature; she was ugly,
crooked, and spare, with severe, wide-open eyes, and thin compressed
lips. In her face, her voice, and her quick angular movements, she took
after her grandmother, the gipsy, Andrei's wife. Obstinate and fond of
power, she would not even hear of marriage. The return of Ivan
Petrovitch did not fit in with her plans; while the Princess Kubensky
kept him with her, she had hoped to receive at least half of her
father's estate; in her avarice, too, she was like her grandmother.
Besides, Glafira envied her brother, he was so well educated, spoke such
good French with a Parisian accent, while she was scarcely able to
pronounce "bon jour" or "comment vous portez-vous." To be sure, her
parents did not know any French, but that was no comfort to her. Ivan