ch was
"Saffron and the Rainbow," was appended the explanation, "The effect
of this is great." Opposite another, which represented "A Stork,
flying with a violet in its beak," stood this motto, "To thee they
are all known;" and "Cupid, and a bear licking its cub," was styled
"Little by Little." Fedia used to pore over these pictures. He was
familiar with them all even to their minutest details. Some of
them--it was always the same ones--made him reflect, and excited his
imagination: of other diversions he knew nothing.

When the time came for teaching him languages and music, Glafira
Petrovna hired an old maid for a mere trifle, a Swede, whose eyes
looked sideways, like a hare's, who spoke French and German more
or less badly, played the piano so so, and pickled cucumbers to
perfection. In the company of this governess, of his aunt, and of an
old servant maid called Vasilievna, Fedia passed four whole years.
Sometimes he would sit in a corner with his "Emblems"--there he would
sit and sit. A scent of geraniums filled the low room, one tallow
candle burnt dimly, the cricket chirped monotonously as if it were
bored, the little clock ticked busily on the wall, a mouse scratched
stealthily and gnawed behind the tapestry; and the three old maids,
like the three Fates, knitted away silently and swiftly, the shadows
of their hands now scampering along, now mysteriously quivering in
the dusk; and strange, no less dusky, thoughts were being born in the
child's mind.

No one would have called Fedia an interesting child. He was rather
pale, but stout, badly built, and awkward--a regular moujik, to use
the expression employed by Glafira Petrovna. The pallor would soon
have vanished from his face if they had let him go out more into the
fresh air. He learnt his lessons pretty well, though he was often
idle. He never cried, but he sometimes evinced a savage obstinacy. At
those times no one could do any thing with him. Fedia did not love a
single one of the persons by whom he was surrounded. Alas for that
heart which has not loved in youth!

Such did Ivan Petrovich find him when he returned; and, without losing
time he at once began to apply his system to him.

"I want, above all, to make a man of him--_un homme_," he said to
Glafira Petrovna "and not only a man, but a Spartan." This plan he
began to carry out by dressing his boy in Highland costume. The
twelve-year-old little fellow had to go about with bare legs, and with
a co