Petrovitch did not know what to do with himself for wretchedness and
ennui; he had spent hardly a year in the country, but that year seemed
to him as long as ten. The only consolation he could find was in talking
to his mother, and he would sit for whole hours in her low-pitched
rooms, listening to the good woman's simple-hearted prattle, and eating
preserves. It so happened that among Anna Pavlovna's maids there was one
very pretty girl with clear soft eyes and refined features, Malanya by
name, an modest intelligent creature. She took his fancy at first sight,
and he fell in love with her: he fell in love with her timid movements,
her bashful answers, her gentle voice and gentle smile; every day she
seemed sweeter to him. And she became devoted to Ivan Petrovitch with
all the strength of her soul, as none but Russian girls can be
devoted--and she gave herself to him. In the large household of a
country squire nothing can long be kept a secret; soon every one knew of
the love between the young master and Malanya; the gossip even reached
the ears of Piotr Andreitch himself. Under other circumstances, he would
probably have paid no attention to a matter of so little importance, but
he had long had a grudge against his son, and was delighted at an
opportunity of humiliating the town-bred wit and dandy. A storm of fuss
and clamour was raised; Malanya was locked up in the pantry, Ivan
Petrovitch was summoned into his father's presence. Anna Pavlovna too
ran up at the hubbub. She began trying to pacify her husband, but Piotr
Andreitch would hear nothing. He pounced down like a hawk on his son,
reproached him with immorality, with godlessness, with hypocrisy; he
took the opportunity to vent on him all the wrath against the Princess
Kubensky that had been simmering within him, and lavished abusive
epithets upon him. At first Ivan Petrovitch was silent and held himself
in, but when his father thought to fit to threaten him with a shameful
punishment he could endure it no longer. "Ah," he thought, "the fanatic
Diderot is brought out again, then I will take the bull by the horns, I