house
and that he might enter when he pleased,--only then would the old man
softly open the door, with a joyous smile, rubbing his hands together
with delight, and betake himself to Pokrovsky's room. He was his
father.

Afterward I learned in detail the story of this poor old man. Once
upon a time he had been in the government service somewhere or other,
but he had not the slightest capacity, and his place in the service
was the lowest and most insignificant of all. When his first wife died
(the mother of the student Pokrovsky), he took it into his head to
marry again, and wedded a woman from the petty-merchant class. Under
the rule of this new wife, everything was at sixes and sevens in his
house; there was no living with her; she drew a tight rein over
everybody. Student Pokrovsky was a boy at that time, ten years of age.
His stepmother hated him. But fate was kind to little Pokrovsky.
Bykoff, a landed proprietor, who was acquainted with Pokrovsky the
father and had formerly been his benefactor, took the child under his
protection and placed him in a school. He took an interest in him
because he had known his dead mother, whom Anna Feodorovna had
befriended while she was still a girl, and who had married her off to
Pokrovsky. From school young Pokrovsky entered a gymnasium, and then
the University, but his impaired health prevented his continuing his
studies there. Mr. Bykoff introduced him to Anna Feodorovna,
recommended him to her, and in this way young Pokrovsky had been taken
into the house as a boarder, on condition that he should teach Sasha
all that was necessary.

But old Pokrovsky fell into the lowest dissipation through grief at
his wife's harshness, and was almost always in a state of drunkenness.
His wife beat him, drove him into the kitchen to live, and brought
matters to such a point that at last he got used to being beaten and
ill-treated, and made no complaint. He was still far from being an old
man, but his evil habits had nearly destroyed his mind. The only sign
in him of noble human sentiments was his boundless love for his son.
It was said that young Pokrovsky was as like his dead mother as two
drops of water to each other. The old man could talk of nothing but
his son, and came to see him regularly twice a week. He dared not come
more frequently, because young Pokrovsky could not endure his father's
visits. Of all his failings, the first and greatest, without a doubt,
was his lack of respect f