oing? sit still."
On Sundays, after mass, he was allowed to play, that is to say, he
was given a thick book, a mysterious book, the work of a certain
Maimovitch-Ambodik, entitled "Symbols and Emblems." This book was a
medley of about a thousand mostly very enigmatical pictures, and as many
enigmatical interpretations of them in five languages. Cupid--naked and
very puffy in the body--played a leading part in these illustrations.
In one of them, under the heading, "Saffron and the Rainbow," the
interpretation appended was: "Of this, the influence is vast;" opposite
another, entitled "A heron, flying with a violet in his beak," stood the
inscription: "To thee they are all known." "Cupid and the bear licking
his fur" was inscribed, "Little by little." Fedya used to ponder over
these pictures; he knew them all to the minutest details; some of them,
always the same ones, used to set him dreaming, and afforded him food
for meditation; he! knew no other amusements. When the time came to
teach him languages and music, Glafira Petrovna engaged, for next to
nothing, an old maid, a Swede, with eyes like a hare's, who spoke French
and German with mistakes in every alternate word, played after a fashion
on the piano, and above all, salted cucumbers to a perfection. In
the society of this governess, his aunt, and the old servant maid,
Vassilyevna, Fedya spent four whole years. Often he would sit in the
corner with his "Emblems"; he sat there endlessly; there was a scent
of geranium in the low pitched room, the solitary candle burnt dim, the
cricket chirped monotonously, as though it were weary, the little clock
ticked away hurriedly on the wall, a mouse scratched stealthily and
gnawed at the wall-paper, and the three old women, like the Fates,
swiftly and silently plied their knitting needles, the shadows raced
after their hands and quivered strangely in the half darkness, and
strange, half dark ideas swarmed in the child's brain. No one would
have called Fedya an interesting child; he was rather pale, but stout,
clumsily built and awkward--a thorough peasant, as Glafira Petrovna
said; the pallor would soon have vanished from his cheeks, if he had
been allowed oftener to be in the open air. He learnt fairly quickly,
though he was often lazy; he never cried, but at times he was overtaken
by a fit of savage obstinacy; then no one could soften him. Fedya loved
no one among those around him.... Woe to the heart that has not loved in
youth