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 see
