importance, but he had long had a grudge against his son, and was delighted at an opportunity of humiliating the town-bred wit and dandy.  A storm of fuss and clamour was raised; Malanya was locked up in the pantry, Ivan Petrovitch was summoned into his father’s presence.  Anna Pavlovna too ran up at the hubbub.  She began trying to pacify her husband, but Piotr Andreitch would hear nothing.  He pounced down like a hawk on his son, reproached him with immorality, with godlessness, with hypocrisy; he took the opportunity to vent on him all the wrath against the Princess Kubensky that had been simmering within him, and lavished abusive epithets upon him.  At first Ivan Petrovitch was silent and held himself in, but when his father thought to fit to threaten him with a shameful punishment he could endure it no longer.  “Ah,” he thought, “the fanatic Diderot is brought out again, then I will take the bull by the horns, I will astonish you all.”  And thereupon with a calm and even voice, though quaking inwardly in every limb, Ivan Petrovitch declared to his father, that there was no need to reproach him with immorality; that though he did not intend to justify his fault he was ready to make amends for it, the more willingly as he felt himself to be superior to every kind of prejudice—­and in fact—­was ready to marry Malanya.  In uttering these words Ivan Petrovitch did undoubtedly attain his object; he so astonished Piotr Andreitch that the latter stood open-eyed, and was struck dumb for a moment; but instantly he came to himself, and just as he was, in a dressing-gown bordered with squirrel fur and slippers on his bare feet, he flew at Ivan Petrovitch with his fists.  The latter, as though by design, had that morning arranged his locks a la Titus, and put on a new English coat of a blue colour, high boots with little tassels and very tight modish buckskin breeches.  Anna Pavlovna shrieked with all her might and covered her face with her hands; but her son ran over the whole house, dashed out into the courtyard, rushed into the kitchen-garden, into the pleasure-grounds, and flew across into the road, and kept running without looking round till at last he ceased to hear the heavy tramp of his father’s steps behind him and his shouts, jerked out with effort, “Stop you scoundrel!” he cried, “stop! or I will curse you!” Ivan Petrovitch took refuge with a neighbour, a small landowner, and Piotr Andreitch returned home worn out and perspiring, and without taking breath, announced that he should deprive his son of his blessing and inheritance, gave orders that all his foolish books should be burnt, and that the girl Malanya should be sent to a distant village without loss of time.  Some kind-hearted people found out Ivan Petrovitch and let him know everything.  Humiliated and driven to fury, he vowed he would be revenged on his father, and the same night lay in wait for the peasant’s cart in which Malanya was being driven away, carried her off by force, galloped off to the nearest town with her and married her.  He was supplied with money by the neighbour, a good-natured retired marine officer, a confirmed tippler, who took an intense delight in every kind of—­as he expressed it—­romantic story.