Chapter 34

MY FATHER'S SECOND MARRIAGE

MY father was forty-eight when he took as his second wife Avdotia
Vassilievna Epifanov.

I suspect that when, that spring, he had departed for the country
with the girls, he had been in that communicatively happy,
sociable mood in which gamblers usually find themselves who have
retired from play after winning large stakes. He had felt that he
still had a fortune left to him which, so long as he did not
squander it on gaming, might be used for our advancement in life.
Moreover, it was springtime, he was unexpectedly well supplied
with ready money, he was alone, and he had nothing to do. As he
conversed with Jakoff on various matters, and remembered both the
interminable suit with the Epifanovs and Avdotia's beauty (it was
a long while since he had seen her), I can imagine him saying:
"How do you think we ought to act in this suit, Jakoff? My idea
is simply to let the cursed land go. Eh? What do you think about
it?" I can imagine, too, how, thus interrogated, Jakoff twirled
his fingers behind his back in a deprecatory sort of way, and
proceeded to argue that it all the same, Peter Alexandritch, we
are in the right." Nevertheless, I further conjecture, Papa
ordered the dogcart to be got ready, put on his fashionable
olive-coloured driving-coat, brushed up the remnants of his hair,
sprinkled his clothes with scent, and, greatly pleased to think
that he was acting a la seignior (as well as, even more,
revelling in the prospect of soon seeing a pretty woman), drove
off to visit his neighbours.

I can imagine, too, that when the flustered housemaid ran to
inform Peter Vassilievitch that Monsieur Irtenieff himself had
called, Peter answered angrily, "Well, what has he come for?"
and, stepping softly about the house, first went into his study
to put on his old soiled jacket, and then sent down word to the
cook that on no account whatever--no, not even if she were
ordered to do so by the mistress herself--was she to add anything
to luncheon.

Since, later, I often saw Papa with Peter, I can form a very good
idea of this first interview between them. I can imagine that,
despite Papa's proposal to end the suit in a peaceful manner,
Peter was morose and resentful at the thought of having
sacrificed his career to his mother, and at Papa having done
nothing of the kind--a by no means surprising circumstance, Peter
probably said to himself. Next, I can see Papa taking no notice
of this ill-humour, but cracking quips and jests, while Peter
gradually found himself forced to treat him as a humorist with
whom he felt offended one moment and inclined to be reconciled
the next. Indeed, with his instinct for making fun of everything,