Her father, Alexei Fedorowitsch, was a poor and uneducated noble, who had distinguished himself by his bravery in the war with Napoleon, and, invalided at its close, retired to his small estate in the country, where he lived upon his pension. His wife, a sickly aristocrat, who had condescended to marry him for want of a more desirable _parti_, was the torment of his life. In despair at the trouble and annoyance caused by his wife's delicate health, sensibility, and affectation, he made a vow, when she bore him a daughter, to educate his child to be an utter contrast to her mother. Better that the child should die than live to be such an invalid as his wife. And he began by causing his little daughter to be baptized, like the children of the poorest Russians in that part of the country, in the icy waters of the Neva. The little Feodorowna outlived her icy bath, and her entire education corresponded with this beginning. Her mother died a few days after this cruel baptism; anxiety for her child put the finishing stroke to her invalid existence. And so her rude, uncultured father was her only guide and instructor. He loved her after his fashion, and made her his companion in all his amusements, riding, training horses, and the chase. She was scarcely sixteen when he married her to a wealthy landed proprietor in the neighbourhood, ruder and more illiterate even than himself, and to the girl an object of aversion. As his wife, she lived on his lonely estate like a serf. Her husband was cruel and suspicious, and made her married life perfect torture. She was compelled to resign her free habits of life, which she loved better than all else in the world. Every extravagance, even the most harmless, was forbidden by her husband. The joyous girl who had been used to fly upon the back of her spirited steed over steppe and heath was not allowed to mount a horse, but was made to sit with her maid-servants and spin by the dim light of a train-oil lamp until her husband came home to compel, perhaps by the _kantschu_, her reluctant attention to his wishes. She bore this martyrdom for one year in silence. At last she made a confidant of a neighbouring nobleman, and implored his aid in her great need; but she found no sympathy,--no assistance. He called her a fool, who did not appreciate her good fortune,--told her that to think of a divorce was a crime, and that her husband was perfectly right. In her utter loneliness, longing for love, if it were only the love of her old father, a desire for freedom and hatred of her tormentor gained the victory, and she fled, without taking anything with her but the few clothes that she had possessed at her marriage. She travelled the greater part of the way on foot, and arrived at her father's in such a wretched condition that he was touched by compassion, received her kindly, and took her part against her husband. Her suit for divorce left her wholly without means, but free, and when shortly afterwards