ticked away hurriedly on the wall, a mouse scratched stealthily and
gnawed at the wall-paper, and the three old women, like the Fates,
swiftly and silently plied their knitting needles, the shadows raced
after their hands and quivered strangely in the half darkness, and
strange, half dark ideas swarmed in the child's brain. No one would have
called Fedya an interesting child; he was rather pale, but stout,
clumsily built and awkward--a thorough peasant, as Glafira Petrovna
said; the pallor would soon have vanished from his cheeks, if he had
been allowed oftener to be in the open air. He learnt fairly quickly,
though he was often lazy; he never cried, but at times he was overtaken
by a fit of savage obstinacy; then no one could soften him. Fedya loved
no one among those around him . . . . Woe to the heart that has not
loved in youth!

Thus Ivan Petrovitch found him, and without loss of time he set to work
to apply his system to him.

"I want above all to make a man, un homme, of him," he said to Glafira
Petrovna, "and not only a man, but a Spartan." Ivan Petrovitch began
carrying out his intentions by putting his son in a Scotch kilt; the
twelve-year-old boy had to go about with bare knees and a plume stuck in
his Scotch cap. The Swedish lady was replaced by a young Swiss tutor,
who was versed in gymnastics to perfection. Music, as a pursuit unworthy
of a man, was discarded. The natural sciences, international law,
mathematics, carpentry, after Jean-Jacques Rousseau's precept, and
heraldry, to encourage chivalrous feelings, were what the future "man"
was to be occupied with. He was waked at four o'clock in the morning,
splashed at once with cold water and set to running round a high pole
with a cord; he had only one meal a day, consisting of a single dish;
rode on horseback; shot with a cross-bow; at every convenient