Chapter 34 - Page 2

Papa often used to address Peter as "Colonel;" and though I can
remember Peter once replying, with an unusually violent stutter
and his face scarlet with indignation, that he had never been a
c-c-colonel, but only a l-l-lieutenant, Papa called him "Colonel"
again before another five minutes were out.

Lubotshka told me that, up to the time of Woloda's and my arrival
from Moscow, there had been daily meetings with the Epifanovs,
and that things had been very lively, since Papa, who had a
genius for arranging, everything with a touch of originality and
wit, as well as in a simple and refined manner, had devised
shooting and fishing parties and fireworks for the Epifanovs'
benefit. All these festivities--so said Lubotshka--would have
gone off splendidly but for the intolerable Peter, who had spoilt
everything by his puffing and stuttering. After our coming,
however, the Epifanovs only visited us twice, and we went once to
their house, while after St. Peter's Day (on which, it being
Papa's nameday, the Epifanovs called upon us in common with a
crowd of other guests) our relations with that family came
entirely to an end, and, in future, only Papa went to see them.

During the brief period when I had opportunities of seeing Papa
and Dunetchka (as her mother called Avdotia) together, this is
what I remarked about them. Papa remained unceasingly in the same
buoyant mood as had so greatly struck me on the day after our
arrival. So gay and youthful and full of life and happy did he
seem that the beams of his felicity extended themselves to all
around him, and involuntarily communicated to them a similar
frame of mind. He never stirred from Avdotia's side so long as
she was in the room, but either kept on plying her with sugary-
sweet compliments which made me feel ashamed for him or, with his
gaze fixed upon her with an air at once passionate and
complacent, sat hitching his shoulder and coughing as from time
to time he smiled and whispered something in her ear. Yet
throughout he wore the same expression of raillery as was
peculiar to him even in the most serious matters.

As a rule, Avdotia herself seemed to catch the infection of the
happiness which sparkled at this period in Papa's large blue
eyes; yet there were moments also when she would be seized with
such a fit of shyness that I, who knew the feeling well, was full
of sympathy and compassion as I regarded her embarrassment. At
moments of this kind she seemed to be afraid of every glance and
every movement--to be supposing that every one was looking at her,
every one thinking of no one but her, and that unfavourably. She
would glance timidly from one person to another, the colour
coming and going in her cheeks,