Three months had not passed before he obtained a position in a Russian embassy to London, and in the first English vessel that sailed (steamers were not even talked of then) he crossed the sea.  A few months later he received a letter from Pestov.  The good-natured landowner congratulated Ivan Petrovitch on the birth of a son, who had been born into the world in the village of Pokrovskoe on the 20th of August, 1807, and named Fedor, in honour of the holy martyr Fedor Stratilat.  On account of her extreme weakness Malanya Sergyevna added only a few lines; but those few lines were a surprise, for Ivan Petrovitch had not known that Marfa Timofyevna had taught his wife to read and write.  Ivan Petrovitch did not long abandon himself to the sweet emotion of parental feeling; he was dancing attendance on a notorious Phryne or Lais of the day (classical names were still in vogue at that date); the Peace of Tilsit had only just been concluded and all the world was hurrying after pleasure, in a giddy whirl of dissipation, and his head had been turned by the black eyes of a bold beauty.  He had very little money, but he was lucky at cards, made many acquaintances, took part in all entertainments, in a word, he was in the swim.

Chapter IX

For a long time the old Lavretsky could not forgive his son for his marriage.  If six months later Ivan Petrovitch had come to him with a penitent face and had thrown himself at his feet, he would, very likely, have pardoned him, after giving him a pretty severe scolding, and a tap with his stick by way of intimidating him, but Ivan Petrovitch went on living abroad and apparently did not care a straw.  “Be silent!  I dare you to speak of it,” Piotr Andreitch said to his wife every time she ventured to try to incline him to mercy.  “The puppy, he ought to thank God for ever that I have not laid my curse upon him; my father would have killed him, the worthless scamp, with his own hands, and he would have done right too.”  At such terrible speeches Anna Pavlovna could only cross herself secretly.  As for Ivan Petrovitch’s wife, Piotr Andreitch at first would not even hear her name, and in answer to a letter of Pestov’s, in which he mentioned his daughter-in-law, he went so far as to send him word that he knew nothing of any daughter-in-law, and that it was forbidden by law to harbour run-away wenches, a fact which he thought it his duty to remind him of.  But later on, he was softened by hearing of the birth of a grandson, and he gave orders secretly that inquiries should be made about the health of the mother, and sent her a little money, also as though it did not come from him.  Fedya was not a year old before Anna Pavlovna fell ill with a fatal complaint.  A few days before her end, when she could no longer leave her bed, with timid tears in her eyes, fast growing dim, she informed her husband in the presence of the priest that she wanted to see her daughter-in-law