VERY shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands

Fyodor Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted

eight years. He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very

young girl, from another province, where he had gone upon some small

piece of business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch

was a drunkard and a vicious debauchee he never neglected investing

his capital, and managed his business affairs very successfully,

though, no doubt, not over-scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the

daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan

without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a

wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress

and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I have only heard that

the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from

a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible

were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this

old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an

insufferable tyrant through idleness.

    Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him

and he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed

an elopement to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she

would not on any account have married him if she had known a little

more about him in time. But she lived in another province; besides,

what could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she

would be better at the bottom of the river than remaining with her

benefactress. So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a

benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a penny this time, for the

general's widow was furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them

both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what allured him was the

remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her innocent

appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious

profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of

feminine beauty.

    "Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say

afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this

might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had

received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from

the halter," he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel

that she had "wronged" him, he took advantage of her phenomenal

meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies

of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on

orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass

things had come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid,

obstinate, argumentative servant, who had always hated his first

mistress, Adelaida Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He

championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little

befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels and drove

all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy

young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of

nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who

are said to be "possessed by devils." At times after terrible fits

of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor

Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year

of marriage and the second three years later. When she died, little

Alexey was in his fourth year, and, strange as it seems, I know that

he remembered his mother all his life, like a dream, of course. At her

death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as

to their elder brother, Mitya. They were completely forgotten and

abandoned by their father. They were looked after by the same

Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were found by the

tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was still

alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done

her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her

Sofya's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous

surroundings she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:

    "It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude."

    Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's

widow suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor

Pavlovitch's house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she

did a great deal. It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had

not seen for those eight years, came in to her drunk. The story is

that instantly upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she

gave him two good, resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a

tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down. Then, without a

word, she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing, at the

first glance, that they were unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly

gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and announcing that she would

carry off both the children she wrapped them just as they were in a

rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her own town.

Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word, and

when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow

and pronounced impressively that, "God would repay her for orphans."

"You are a blockhead all the same," the old lady shouted to him as she

drove away.

    Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good

thing, and did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to

any proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the

slaps she had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story.

    It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left

the boys in her will a thousand roubles each "for their instruction,

and so that all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition

that it be so portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for

it is more than adequate provision for such children. If other

people think fit to throw away their money, let them." I have not read

the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of the sort,

very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch

Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the province, turned out, however,

to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at

once that he could extract nothing from him for his children's

education (though the latter never directly refused but only

procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at

times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal

interest in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger,

Alexey, who lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the

reader to note this from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man

of a generosity and humanity rarely to be met with, the young people

were more indebted for their education and bringing up than to anyone.

He kept the two thousand roubles left to them by the general's widow

intact, so that by the time they came of age their portions had been

doubled by the accumulation of interest. He educated them both at

his own expense, and certainly spent far more than a thousand

roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a detailed account of

their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few of the most

important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he grew

into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At ten

years old he had realised that they were living not in their own

home but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of

whom it was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in

his infancy (so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual

aptitude for learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the

family of Yefim Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a

Moscow gymnasium and boarding with an experienced and celebrated

teacher, an old friend of Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare

afterwards that this was all due to the "ardour for good works" of

Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the idea that the boy's genius

should be trained by a teacher of genius. But neither Yefim Petrovitch

nor this teacher was living when the young man finished at the

gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch had made

no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy,

which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to

formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great

straits for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to

keep himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he

did not even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from

pride, from contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense,

which told him that from such a father he would get no real

assistance. However that may have been, the young man was by no

means despondent and succeeded in getting work, at first giving

sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting paragraphs on street incidents

into the newspapers under the signature of "Eye-Witness." These

paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and piquant that they

were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's practical and

intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and unfortunate

students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the newspapers

and journals, unable to think of anything better than everlasting

entreaties for copying and translations from the French. Having once

got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept up his

connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he

published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so

that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last

year he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far

wider circle of readers, so that a great many people noticed and

remembered him. It was rather a curious incident. When he had just

left the university and was preparing to go abroad upon his two

thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch published in one of the more

important journals a strange article, which attracted general

notice, on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know

nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The article dealt

with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the time- the

position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several

opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was

most striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected

conclusion. Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as

on their side. And yet not only the secularists but even atheists

joined them in their applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined

that the article was nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I

mention this incident particularly because this article penetrated

into the famous monastery in our neighbourhood, where the inmates,

being particularly interested in question of the ecclesiastical

courts, were completely bewildered by it. Learning the author's

name, they were interested in his being a native of the town and the

son of "that Fyodor Pavlovitch." And just then it was that the

author himself made his appearance among us.

    Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself

at the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was

the first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully

explained to myself. It seemed strange on the face of it that a

young man so learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should

suddenly visit such an infamous house and a father who had ignored him

all his life, hardly knew him, never thought of him, and would not

under any circumstances have given him money, though he was always

afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would also come to ask him for

it. And here the young man was staying in the house of such a

father, had been living with him for two months, and they were on

the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of

wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miusov,

of whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's

first wife, happened to be in the neighbourhood again on a visit to

his estate. He had come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I

remember that he was more surprised than anyone when he made the

acquaintance of the young man, who interested him extremely, and

with whom he sometimes argued and not without inner pang compared

himself in acquirements.

    "He is proud," he used to say, "he will never be in want of pence;

he has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here?

Everyone can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would

never give him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet

his father can't do without him. They get on so well together!"

    That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence

over his father, who positively appeared to be behaving more

decently and even seemed at times ready to obey his son, though

often extremely and even spitefully perverse.

    It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the

request of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom

he saw for the first time on this very visit, though he had before

leaving Moscow been in correspondence with him about an important

matter of more concern to Dmitri than himself. What that business

was the reader will learn fully in due time. Yet even when I did

know of this special circumstance I still felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be

an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit rather mysterious.

    I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a

mediator between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in

open quarrel with his father and even planning to bring an action

against him.

    The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and

some of its members met for the first time in their lives. The younger

brother, Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the

first of the three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it

most difficult to speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some

preliminary account of him, if only to explain one queer fact, which

is that I have to introduce my hero to the reader wearing the

cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been for the last year in our

monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered there for the rest of

his life.