It did not embitter him, nor did it make him rebellious. It made him servile, disposed to buffoonery, with no sense of the fitness of things, and devoid of all foresight and prudence.
Such natures yield to all influences and may become almost anything—drunkards, beggars, buffoons, even criminals.
At the age of twenty Stepan Golovliov graduated from the gymnasium in Moscow and entered the university.
But his student's life was a bitter one.
In the first place, his mother gave him just enough money to keep him from dying of hunger. Secondly, he did not show the least inclination to work. Instead, he developed an accursed talent, which expressed itself chiefly in mimickry. And he suffered from a desire for constant companionship. He hated to be alone a single instant.
So he played the light role of hanger-on and parasite, and thanks to his readiness for any prank he soon became the favorite of the rich students.
However, though they received him into their society, they looked on him, not as one of them, but as a clown; and the reputation clung to him.
Once placed on such a plane, he naturally slid down lower and lower, and at the end of the fourth year was thoroughly confirmed in his clownship.
Nevertheless, thanks to his receptive ability and good memory, he passed the examinations successfully and received his bachelor's degree.
When he appeared before his mother with the diploma, she merely shrugged her shoulders and said: "Well, that's funny."
Then, after letting him spend a month in the country, she shipped him back to St. Petersburg with an allowance of a hundred rubles a month.
Now there began for him endless visits to various government offices.
He had neither patrons nor the determination to make his own way by hard work.
The lad's mind had lost so completely the habit of concentration that bureaucratic tasks such as the drawing up of briefs and case abstracts were beyond his power.
After four years of struggle Stepan was forced to admit that there was no hope of his ever rising above the rank of a government clerk.
In reply to his lamentations, Arina Petrovna wrote him a stern letter which began with the words: "I was sure that would happen," and wound up with a command to return at once to Moscow.
There, at the conclave of Arina Petrovna's favorite peasants, it was decided to place Simple Simon in the Aulic Court, entrusting him to the care of a pettifogger who from time immemorial had been the legal adviser of the Golovliov family.
What Stepan Vladimirych did in the Aulic Court and how he behaved there is a mystery. What is certain is that at the end of the third year he was there no longer.
Then Arina Petrovna took a heroic measure. She "threw her son a bone," which was also supposed to fill the part of the "parental blessing," that is to say, the patrimony.
"The bone" consisted of a house in Moscow, for which she had paid twelve thousand rubles.
For the first time in his life Stepan Golovliov breathed freely.
The house promised to bring him an income of a thousand silver rubles, a sum which in comparison with his former income, seemed like genuine prosperity.
He kissed his mamma's hand effusively, and promised to justify her kindness, whereupon Arina Petrovna said: "That's better; but mind you, you numskull, that's all you get from me!"
But, alas! so little was he used to handling money, so absurd was his estimation of real values in life, that before long what he thought to be a fabulous revenue proved insufficient.
In five or six years he was totally ruined, and was only too glad to enter the militia, which was then being organized.
No sooner, however, did the militia troops reach Kharkov than peace was concluded, and Golovliov went back to Moscow, dressed in a somewhat threadbare uniform and high boots. By this time his house had already been sold, and the only thing he owned was a hundred rubles.
He began "speculating" with this capital, that is, he tried his luck at cards, but in a short time he lost all he had.
Then he conceived the plan of visiting his mother's well-to-do peasants who lived in Moscow. Some of them invited him to dinner, others, yielding to his importunings, gave him tobacco or lent him small sums of money.
At last the hour came when he found himself before a blind wall, as it were.
He was already almost forty years old, and had to confess to himself that his nomadic existence was too much for his strength.
There was only one thing left to him, to take the road leading to Golovliovo.
After Stepan Vladimirych, the oldest child, came Anna Vladimirovna, about whom Arina Petrovna did not like to speak either.
The truth of the matter was, the old lady had placed definite expectations in Annushka, but she, far from fulfilling her mother's hopes, had perpetrated a scandal which set the whole district agog.
When Annushka left the girls' boarding-school, Arina Petrovna installed her at the village, hoping to make of her a sort of unpaid private secretary and bookkeeper, but instead Annushka eloped one fine night with cornet Ulanov and married him.
"They have married like dogs, without a parent's blessing!" complained Arina Petrovna.
"Lucky, though, that he submitted to a wedding ceremony at all.
Another man would have taken advantage of her—and vanished into thin air.
A fine chance for catching a bird."
With her daughter Arina Petrovna dealt as peremptorily as she had with her hated son.
She bestowed "a bone" upon her too, in the shape of five thousand rubles and a wretched little village of thirty souls and a manor-house going with it, so dilapidated that the wind blew through the gaping paneless windows and there was not one sound board in the flooring.
In two years the young couple had gone through the money, and the cornet took himself off, deserting his wife and two twin girls, Anninka and Lubinka.
Three months later the mother died, and Arina Petrovna, willy-nilly, had to take the little orphans into her own house.
She installed them in a side-wing and entrusted them to the care of Palashka, old and one-eyed.
"The Lord's mercy is great," remarked Arina Petrovna. "The little orphans won't eat much of my bread, but they'll be a solace to me in my old age.
God has given me two daughters instead of one."
At the same time she wrote to her son, Porfiry Vladimirych:
"Your dear sister died as she lived, indecently, and now her two children are hanging round my neck."
What we are going to say may seem cynical, but we feel it our duty to state that the granting of the heritage to Stepan and Anna did not by any means impair Arina Petrovna's financial condition. On the contrary, in reducing the number of shareholders it contributed indirectly to the rounding out of the family estate.
For Arina Petrovna was a woman of strict principles, and once having "thrown them a bone," she considered her obligations toward her unloved children completely and definitely settled.
In regard to her grandchildren it never entered her mind that in due time she would have to part with something for them.