Pagina 849 di 1294

Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The

attitude of Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange,

though perhaps natural. Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated

him from the day he came to stay with him and at the same time he

seemed somewhat afraid of him. He had not come to stay with him

on his arrival in Petersburg simply from parsimony, though that

had been perhaps his chief object. He had heard of Andrey

Semyonovitch, who had once been his ward, as a leading young

progressive who was taking an important part in certain

interesting circles, the doings of which were a legend in the

provinces. It had impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful

omniscient circles who despised everyone and showed everyone up

had long inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had

not, of course, been able to form even an approximate notion of

what they meant.