capable
of undertaking his education, she was scarcely allowed to see him;
Glafira set herself to that task; the child was put absolutely under
her control. Malanya Sergyevna began, in her distress, to beseech Ivan
Petrovitch, in her letters, to return home soon. Piotr Andreitch himself
wanted to see his son, but Ivan Petrovitch did nothing but write. He
thanked his father on his wife's account, and for the money sent him,
promised to return quickly--and did not come. The year 1812 at last
summoned him home from abroad. When they met again, after six years'
absence, the father embraced his son, and not by a single word made
allusion to their former differences; it was not a time for that now,
all Russia was rising up against the enemy, and both of them felt that
they had Russian blood in their veins. Piotr Andreitch equipped a whole
regiment of volunteers at his own expense. But the war came to an end,
the danger was over; Ivan Petrovitch began to be bored again, and again
he felt drawn away to the distance, to the world in which he had grown
up, and where he felt himself at home. Malanya Sergyevna could not
keep him; she meant too little to him. Even her fondest hopes came
to nothing; her husband considered that it was much more suitable to
intrust Fedya's education to Glafira. Ivan Petrovitch's poor wife could
not bear this blow, she could not bear a second separation; in a few
days, without a murmur, she quietly passed away. All her life she had
never been able to oppose anything, and she did not struggle against her
illness. When she could no longer speak, when the shadows of death
were already on her face, her features expressed, as of old, bewildered
resignation and constant, uncomplaining meekness; with the same dumb
submissiveness she looked at Glafira, and just as Anna Pavlovna kissed
her husband's hand on her deathbed, she kissed Glafira's, commending to
her, to Glafira, her only son. So ended the earthly existence of this
good and gentle creature, torn, God knows why, like an uprooted tree
from its natural soil and at once thrown down with its roots in the air;
she had faded and passed away leaving no trace, and no one mourned
for her. Malanya Sergyevna's maids pitied her, and so did even Piotr
Andreitch. The old man missed her silent presence. "Forgive me...
farewell, my meek one!" he whispered, as he took leave of her the last
time in church. He wept as he threw a handful of earth in the grave.

He did not