she tried to be gay,
her gaiety somehow seemed to be unnatural to her, so that she always
appeared to be laughing either at herself or at the persons to whom she
was speaking or at the world in general--a thing which, possibly, she
had no real intention of doing. Often I asked myself in astonishment
what she could mean when she said something like, "Yes, I know how
terribly good-looking I am," or, "Of course every one is in love with
me," and so forth. Her mother was a person always busy, since she had
a passion for housekeeping, gardening, flowers, canaries, and pretty
trinkets. Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and poorly
fitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and methodical, and bore
such a general air of that gentle gaiety which one hears expressed in
a waltz or polka, that the word "toy" by which guests often expressed
their praise of it all exactly suited her surroundings. She herself
was a "toy"--being petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, and
pretty-handed, and invariably gay and well-dressed. The only fault in
her was that a slight over-prominence of the dark-blue veins on her
little hands rather marred the general effect of her appearance. On the
other hand, her daughter scarcely ever did anything at all. Not only had
she no love for trifling with flowers and trinkets, but she neglected
her personal exterior, and only troubled to dress herself well when
guests happened to call. Yet, on returning to the room in society
costume, she always looked extremely handsome--save for that cold,
uniform expression of eyes and smile which is common to all beauties. In
fact, her strictly regular, beautiful face and symmetrical figure always
seemed to be saying to you, "Yes, you may look at me."

At the same time, for all the mother's liveliness of disposition and the
daughter's air of indifference and abstraction, something told one that
the former was incapable of feeling affection for anything that was
not pretty and gay, but that Avdotia, on the contrary, was one of those
natures which, once they love, are willing to sacrifice their whole life
for the man they adore.

XXXIV. 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