Petrovitch on his side never caressed him; his grandfather sometimes
patted him on the head and gave him his hand to kiss, but he thought him
and called him a little fool. After the death of Malanya Sergyevna, his
aunt finally got him under her control. Fedya was afraid of her: he was
afraid of her bright sharp eyes and her harsh voice; he dared not utter
a sound in her presence; often, when he only moved a little in his
chair, she would! hiss out at once: "What are you doing? sit still." On
Sundays, after mass, he was allowed to play, that is to say, he was
given a thick book, a mysterious book, the work of a certain
Maimovitch-Ambodik, entitled "Symbols and Emblems." This book was a
medley of about a thousand mostly very enigmatical pictures, and as many
enigmatical interpretations of them in five languages. Cupid--naked and
very puffy in the body--played a leading part in these illustrations. In
one of them, under the heading, "Saffron and the Rainbow," the
interpretation appended was: "Of this, the influence is vast;" opposite
another, entitled "A heron, flying with a violet in his beak," stood the
inscription: "To thee they are all known." "Cupid and the bear licking
his fur" was inscribed, "Little by little." Fedya used to ponder over
these pictures; he knew them all to the minutest details; some of them,
always the same ones, used to set him dreaming, and afforded him food
for meditation; he! knew no other amusements. When the time came to
teach him languages and music, Glafira Petrovna engaged, for next to
nothing, an old maid, a Swede, with eyes like a hare's, who spoke French
and German with mistakes in every alternate word, played after a fashion
on the piano, and above all, salted cucumbers to a perfection. In the
society of this governess, his aunt, and the old servant maid,
Vassilyevna, Fedya spent four whole years. Often he would sit in the
corner with his "Emblems"; he sat there endlessly; there was a scent of
geranium in the low pitched room, the solitary candle burnt dim, the
cricket chirped monotonously, as though it were weary, the little clock