political ideas, burnt all his schemes, all his correspondence, trembled
before the governor, and was uneasy at the sigh of the police-captain;
he, the man of iron will, whimpered and complained, when he had a
gumboil or when they gave him a plate of cold soup. Glafira Petrovna
again took control of everything in the house; once more the overseers,
bailiffs and simple peasants began to come to the back stairs to speak
to the "old witch," as the servants called her. The change in Ivan
Petrovitch produced a powerful impression on his son. He had now reached
his nineteenth year, and had begun to reflect and to emancipate himself
from the hand that pressed like a weight upon him. Even before this time
he had observed a little discrepancy between his father's words and
deeds, between his wide liberal theories and his harsh petty despotism;
but he had not expected such a complete breakdown. His confirmed egoism
was patent now in everything. Young Lavretsky was getting ready! to go
to Moscow, to prepare for the university, when a new unexpected
calamity overtook Ivan Petrovitch; he became blind, and hopelessly
blind, in one day.

Having no confidence in the skill of Russian doctors, he began to make
efforts to obtain permission to go abroad. It was refused. Then he took
his son with him and for three whole years was wandering about Russia,
from one doctor to another, incessantly moving from one town to another,
and driving his physicians, his son, and his servants to despair by his
cowardice and impatience. He returned to Lavriky a perfect wreck, a
tearful and capricious child. Bitter days followed, every one had much
to put up with from him. Ivan Petrovitch was only quiet when he was
dining; he had never been so greedy and eaten so much; all the rest of
the time he gave himself and others no peace. He prayed, cursed his
fate, abused himself, abused politics, his system, abused everything he
had boasted of and prided himself upon, everything he had held up to his