All she cared for was to draw all the income possible from the small estate of her deceased daughter and deposit it in the Chamber of Trustees.
"There I am," she would say, "laying by money for the orphans. For feeding and bringing them up I take nothing from them.
For the bread they eat it is God who will pay me."
As for the younger children, Porfiry and Pavel, they served in St. Petersburg, the former in a civil capacity, the latter in the army.
Porfiry was married; Pavel was an old bachelor.
Porfiry Vladimirych was known in the family by three nicknames, Yudushka (diminutive of Judas), Bloodsucker, and Goody-goody Boy, which had been invented by Simple Simon.
From his early childhood Porfiry had been oddly intent upon currying favor with his "dear mamma" and showed a tendency to play the sycophant.
He would open the door of his mother's room softly, creep noiselessly into a corner, and sit there, as if entranced, with his eyes fixed on his mother while she wrote or busied herself with accounts.
Even in those days Arina Petrovna regarded her son's efforts to insinuate himself into her good graces with vague suspicion.
His stare puzzled her. She could not decide what his eyes expressed, whether venom or filial reverence.
"I cannot make out what is in his eyes," she sometimes argued with herself. "His glance is like a noose which he is getting ready to throw.
He might look like that handing a person poison or enticing him into a pitfall."
In this connection she often recollected highly significant details of the time she was carrying Porfisha.
An old man called Porfisha the Saint was at that time living in the manor. He had the reputation of a seer, and Arina Petrovna turned to him whenever she wanted to learn something about the future.
She had asked him when she would be delivered of the child and whether it would be a boy or a girl; but the pious old man gave no direct answer. Instead he crowed three times like a cock and then mumbled:
"Cockerel, cockerel, sharp claw!
The cock crows and threatens the brood-hen; the brood-hen—cluck! cluck!—but it will be too late!"
That was all he said.
Three days later (the seer crowed three times!) Arina Petrovna gave birth to a son ("cockerel! cockerel!") and named him Porfiry in honor of the old soothsayer.
The first half of the prophecy had been fulfilled; but what could be the hidden meaning of the mysterious words, "the brood-hen—cluck! cluck!—but it will be too late?" Arina Petrovna often pondered over it, whenever her eyes fell on Porfisha, who sat in his nook with his enigmatic gaze fixed on her.
Meanwhile Porfisha kept on staring, quiet and meek, staring so intently that his wide-open, motionless eyes began to swim in tears, as if he vaguely sensed the doubts that tormented his mother's soul, and wished to behave so as to disarm her most persistent suspicion.
At the risk of annoying his mother, he constantly hovered about her, and the expression in his eyes seemed to say:
"Look at me!
I conceal nothing from you.
I am all obedience and devotion, and, mind you, I am obedient and devoted not only from fear but also from loyalty."
And although an inner voice constantly sounded warning that the young scoundrel was dangerous in spite of his wheedling and fawning, her heart could not resist such unremitting devotion and her hand involuntarily felt for the best piece in the dish to bestow upon the affectionate child. And yet the very sight of him at times awakened a vague fear of something puzzling and eery.
The exact opposite of Porfiry was his brother, Pavel, the most perfect embodiment of absolute passivity.
As a boy he manifested no inclination whatever for study, or games, or playing with other boys, but liked to keep to himself.
He would get into a corner, pout, and set to work building air castles, dreaming that he had gorged himself with oatmeal so that his legs had become thin and he had no lessons to learn, or else that he was Davidka, the shepherd, with a growing lump on his forehead, just like David's, and cracked a whip and had no lessons to learn.
Arina Petrovna would gaze at him for a long time, and then her motherly feelings would well up:
"Why do you sit there like a mouse on groats?" she would scold. "Is the poison working in you already? Why don't you come over to your mother and say: 'Mamenka darling, hug me?'"
Pavel would leave his place of refuge and slowly approach his mother, as if someone were pushing him from behind.
"Mamenka darling," he would repeat in a bass voice unnatural in a child, "hug me."
"Get out of my sight, you sneak. You think if you get into your corner I don't understand. You are mistaken, my darling.
I see through and through you. Your plans and projects are as clear as if they were spread on the palm of my hand."
And Pavel would just as slowly retrace his steps and bury himself again in his corner.
Years passed by, and Pavel Vladimirych gradually developed that apathetic, unaccountably gloomy character which often goes with absolute passivity.
He was, perhaps, good, but he had done nobody any good; he was, perhaps, not without some intelligence, but he had not achieved anything intelligent in his life.
He was hospitable, but people did not like to avail themselves of his hospitality. He spent money readily, but nothing good or pleasant came of his lavishness to anybody. He never harmed anybody, but that was not considered a merit. He was honest, but no one had ever heard it said: "How honorably Pavel Golovliov dealt in that affair!"
It must be added that sometimes, not often, he snarled at his mother, although he feared her like poison.
I repeat, he was an ill-tempered person, but back of his moroseness was nothing but sheer inertness.
When the brothers reached maturity, the difference in their characters was most conspicuous in their relation to their mother.
Yudushka punctually every week sent a lengthy epistle to "mother dear," in which he informed her in the greatest detail of all the minuti? of his life in St. Petersburg, and assured her of his disinterested filial devotion in the most carefully selected terms.
As for Pavel, he wrote rarely, laconically, and sometimes even enigmatically, pulling every word out of himself with a pair of tongs, as it were.
"My adorable friend and dear mother," is what Porfiry Vladimirych wrote, for instance, "I have received the money from the peasant Yerofeyev, and I send you my most heartfelt thanks for forwarding the sum, which, according to your gracious wish, dearest mamenka, is to be spent for my maintenance. I also kiss your hands with sincere filial devotion.
What worries and grieves me is the thought that you are straining your precious health all too much by your ceaseless efforts to satisfy not only our needs, but our whims as well.
I don't know what brother thinks, but I——" etc., etc.
As for Pavel, what he wrote on a similar occasion was:
"Dear mother, am in receipt of the money, and, according to my calculations, you still owe six and a half rubles, for which I beg to be graciously forgiven."
When Arina Petrovna wrote reprimanding the children for their extravagance—she did so rather frequently, although there was no serious necessity for it—Porfisha invariably received her rebuke submissively and replied: