was too evidently forced. Lastly, she knew no reticence with regard
to her ceaseless rapturising to all and sundry concerning her love for
Papa. Although she only spoke the truth when she said that her whole
life was bound up with him, and although she proved it her life long,
we considered such unrestrained, continual insistence upon her affection
for him bad form, and felt more ashamed for her when she was descanting
thus before strangers even than we did when she was perpetrating bad
blunders in French. Yet, although, as I have said, she loved her husband
more than anything else in the world, and he too had a great affection
for her (or at all events he had at first, and when he saw that others
besides himself admired her beauty), it seemed almost as though she
purposely did everything most likely to displease him--simply to prove
to him the strength of her love, her readiness to sacrifice herself
for his sake, and the fact that her one aim in life was to win his
affection! She was fond of display, and my father too liked to see her
as a beauty who excited wonder and admiration; yet she sacrificed her
weakness for fine clothes to her love for him, and grew more and
more accustomed to remain at home in a plain grey blouse. Again, Papa
considered freedom and equality to be indispensable conditions of family
life, and hoped that his favourite Lubotshka and his kind-hearted young
wife would become sincere friends; yet once again Avdotia sacrificed
herself by considering it incumbent upon her to pay the "real mistress
of the house," as she called Lubotshka, an amount of deference which
only shocked and annoyed my father. Likewise, he played cards a great
deal that winter, and lost considerable sums towards the end of it,
wherefore, unwilling, as usual, to let his gambling affairs intrude upon
his family life, he began to preserve complete secrecy concerning his
play; yet Avdotia, though often ailing, as well as, towards the end of
the winter, enceinte, considered herself bound always to sit up (in a
grey blouse, and with her hair dishevelled) for my father when, at,
say, four or five o'clock in the morning, he returned home from the
club ashamed, depleted in pocket, and weary. She would ask him
absent-mindedly whether he had been fortunate in play, and listen with
indulgent attention, little nods of her head, and a faint smile upon her
face as he told her of his doings at the club and begged her, for about
the hundredth t