ng for pardon between her shaking sobs.

CHAPTER III

THE GREGORIEV HEIR

The west wing of the palace in the Serpoukhovskaia sheltered two beings
whose outward and inner lives, though divergent in every detail, were
nevertheless bound fast together by the most powerful tie of nature and
of law. But it was at the other end of the huge building that there
dwelt the solitary offspring of this unnatural union, a boy now in the
eleventh year of childhood, companionless, physically inactive, mentally
over-quick, perceptive, and quaintly imaginative.

Despite the fact that solitude was as much the keynote of his existence
as of that of his father and mother, many eyes were concentrated upon
the development, spiritual and mental, of Ivan Gregoriev. Upon him had
been fastened the hopes even of the Gregoriev serfs, who were as devoted
to him and to his mother as they were miserably afraid of their master.
An hour's observation was enough to make plain the fact that Ivan had in
him not one of his father's characteristics. For this reason he was said
to resemble his mother. But as a matter of fact this statement was
hardly more true than one of the paternal resemblance would have been.
The boy certainly worshipped his mother; who had been his one staff
during that fearful and lonely pilgrimage of his through dark caverns of
speculation concerning the mysteries of his own and his mother's
isolation: facts of which he had been cognizant at a startling age. From
the first, indeed, he had stood, as it were, apart: a silent, observant
young creature, not morbid nor markedly unnatural, yet holding within
himself possibilities not to be found in the usual hobbledehoy of his
age. And though it is probable that, in after years, he felt his
aloofness far more keenly than at the present period, it was in his
early boyhood that his sense of it was most apparent to others.

That Ivan should, from the first, have been a lonely child, was
inevitable, considering his parentage. In the Russia of that day sons of
noble families were not often kept under tutors. They were more
frequently sent to select private schools, where they would meet only
their own class, till they were of age to enter one or another of the
"corps" or academies, started by Nicholas for the noble youths whom he
wished to officer his army and people the royal households. Young
Gregoriev, however, had, up to this time--the new year of 1852--worked,
studied and dreame