In the country manor-house of a landed proprietor, no secret can be kept long: every one soon knew of the bond between the young master and Malanya; the tidings of this connection at last reached Piotr Andreitch himself. At any other time, he would, in all probability, have paid no heed to such an insignificant matter; but he had long been in a rage with his son, and rejoiced at the opportunity to put to shame the Petersburg philosopher and dandy. Tumult, shrieks, and uproar arose: Malanya was locked up in the lumber-room; Ivan Petrovitch was summoned to his parent. Anna Pavlovna also hastened up at the outcry. She made an effort to pacify her husband, but Piotr Andreitch no longer listened to anything. Like a vulture he pounced upon his son, upbraided him with immorality, with impiety, with hypocrisy; incidentally, he vented on him all his accumulated wrath against the Princess Kubenskoy, and overwhelmed him with insulting epithets. At first, Ivan Petrovitch held his peace, and stood firm, but when his father took it into his head to threaten him with a disgraceful chastisement, he lost patience. "The fanatic Diderot has come on the stage again," he thought,--"so just wait, I'll put him in action; I'll astonish you all." Thereupon, in a quiet voice, although trembling in every limb, Ivan Petrovitch announced to his father, that there was no necessity for upbraiding him with immorality, that, although he did not intend to justify his fault, yet he was ready to rectify it, and that the more willingly because he felt himself superior to all prejudices--in short, he was ready to marry Malanya. By uttering these words, Ivan Petrovitch did, undoubtedly, attain his object: he astounded Piotr Andreitch to such a degree, that the latter stared with all his eyes, and was rendered dumb for a moment; but he immediately recovered himself, and just as he was, clad in a short coat lined with squirrel-skin, and with slippers on his bare feet, he flung himself with clenched fists upon Ivan Petrovitch, who that day, as though expressly, had his hair dressed _a la Titus_, and had donned a new blue English dress-coat, boots with tassels, and dandified chamois trousers, skin-tight. Anna Pavlovna shrieked at the top of her voice, and covered her face with her hands, but her son ran through the whole house, sprang out into the yard, rushed into the vegetable garden, across the garden, flew out upon the highway, and kept running, without looking behind him, until, at last, he ceased to hear behind him the heavy tramp of his father's footsteps, and his violent, broken shouts.... "Stop, rascal!" he roared,--"stop! I'll curse thee!"