is father wished him to study hard, but his mother was afraid that
study might injure his health, and accordingly gave him several holidays
every week. Under these circumstances his progress was naturally
not very rapid, and he was still very slightly acquainted with the
elementary rules of arithmetic, when his father one day declared that he
was already eighteen years of age, and must at once enter the service.

But what kind of service? Ivan had no natural inclination for any
kind of activity. The project of entering him as a Junker in a cavalry
regiment, the colonel of which was an old friend of the family, did not
at all please him. He had no love for military service, and positively
disliked the prospect of an examination. Whilst seeming, therefore,
to bow implicitly to the paternal authority, he induced his mother to
oppose the scheme.

The dilemma in which Ivan found himself was this: in deference to his
father he wished to be in the service and gain that official rank
which every Russian noble desires to possess, and at the same time, in
deference to his mother and his own tastes, he wished to remain at home
and continue his indolent mode of life. The Marshal of the Noblesse, who
happened to call one day, helped him out of the difficulty by offering
to inscribe him as secretary in the Dvoryanskaya Opeka, a bureau which
acts as curator for the estates of minors. All the duties of this office
could be fulfilled by a paid secretary, and the nominal occupant would
be periodically promoted as if he were an active official. This was
precisely what Ivan required. He accepted eagerly the proposal, and
obtained, in the course of seven years, without any effort on his
part, the rank of "collegiate secretary," corresponding to the
"capitaine-en-second" of the military hierarchy. To mount higher he
would have had to seek some place where he could not have fulfilled his
duty by proxy, so he determined to rest on his laurels, and sent in his
resignation.

Immediately after the termination of his official life his married
life began. Before his resignation had been accepted he suddenly found
himself one morning on the high road to matrimony. Here again there was
no effort on his part. The course of true love, which is said never to
run smooth for ordinary mortals, ran smooth for him. He never had even
the trouble of proposing. The whole affair was arranged by his parents,
who chose as bride for their son the only daughter of