In her face, her voice, and her quick angular movements, she took after her grandmother, the gipsy, Andrei's wife.

Obstinate and fond of power, she would not even hear of marriage.

The return of Ivan Petrovitch did not fit in with her plans; while the Princess Kubensky kept him with her, she had hoped to receive at least half of her father's estate; in her avarice, too, she was like her grandmother.
Besides, Glafira envied her brother, he was so well educated, spoke such good French with a Parisian accent, while she was scarcely able to pronounce "bon jour" or "comment vous portez-vous." To be sure, her parents did not know any French, but that was no comfort to her.

Ivan Petrovitch did not know what to do with himself for wretchedness and ennui; he had spent hardly a year in the country, but that year seemed to him as long as ten.

The only consolation he could find was in talking to his mother, and he would sit for whole hours in her low-pitched rooms, listening to the good woman's simple-hearted prattle, and eating preserves.