On meeting again, for the first time, after their six years' separation, the father and son exchanged embraces, and did not allude, by so much as a word, to their former dissensions; they were not in the mood for it then: all Russia had risen against the enemy, and both of them felt that Russian blood was flowing in their veins. Piotr Andreitch, at his own expense, clothed an entire regiment of soldiers. But the war came to an end, the danger passed; again Ivan Petrovitch began to feel bored, again he longed for far-away places, for the world to which he had grown fast, and where he felt himself at home. Malanya Sergyeevna could not hold him back; she counted for too little with him. Even her hopes had not been realised: her husband, also, deemed it much more fitting that Fedya's education should be entrusted to Glafira. Ivan Petrovitch's poor wife could not withstand this blow, could not endure this second parting: without a murmur, in a few days she expired. During the whole course of her life, she had never been able to offer resistance, and she did not combat her malady. She could no longer speak, the shadows of the tomb had already descended upon her face, but her features, as of old, expressed patient perplexity, and the steadfast gentleness of submission; with the same dumb humility she gazed at Glafira, and, like Anna Pavlovna on her deathbed, she kissed the hand of Piotr Andreitch, and pressed her lips to Glafira's hand also, entrusting to her, Glafira, her only son. Thus ended its earthly career a kind and gentle being, torn, God alone knows why, from its native soil and immediately flung aside, like an uprooted sapling, with its roots to the sun; it faded away, it vanished, without a trace, that being, and no one mentioned it. Those who grieved for Malanya Sergyeevna were her maid and Piotr Andreitch. The old man missed her silent presence. "Forgive--farewell, my patient one!" he whispered, as he made her the parting reverence in church. He wept as he threw a handful of earth into the grave. He did not long survive her--not more than five years. In the winter of 1819, he died peacefully in Moscow, whither he had removed with Glafira and his grandson, and left orders in his will, that he should be buried by the side of Anna Pavlovna and "Malasha." Ivan Petrovitch was in Paris at the time, for his pleasure; he had resigned from the service soon after 1815. On hearing of his father's death, he decided to return to Russia. It was necessary to consider the organisation of the estate ... and Fedya, according to Glafira's letter, had reached the age of twelve years, and the time had arrived for occupying himself seriously with the boy's education. ----- [3] Serfs were not addressed with their patronymic by their superiors. --Translator. X