“You know, I suppose, that Papa is going to marry Avdotia Epifanov?”
I nodded, for I had already heard so. “Well, it is not a good thing,” continued Woloda.
“Why so?”
“Why?” he repeated irritably. “Because it will be so pleasant, won’t it, to have this stuttering ‘colonel’ and all his family for relations! Certainly she seems nice enough, as yet; but who knows what she will turn out to be later? It won’t matter much to you or myself, but Lubotshka will soon be making her debut, and it will hardly be nice for her to have such a ‘belle mere’ as this—a woman who speaks French badly, and has no manners to teach her.”
Although it seemed odd to hear Woloda criticising Papa’s choice so coolly, I felt that he was right.
“Why is he marrying her?” I asked.
“Oh, it is a hole-and-corner business, and God only knows why,” he answered. “All I know is that her brother, Peter, tried to make conditions about the marriage, and that, although at first Papa would not hear of them, he afterwards took some fancy or knight-errantry or another into his head. But, as I say, it is a hole-and-corner business. I am only just beginning to understand my father “—the fact that Woloda called Papa “my father” instead of “Papa” somehow hurt me—“and though I can see that he is kind and clever, he is irresponsible and frivolous to a degree that—Well, the whole thing is astonishing. He cannot so much as look upon a woman calmly. You yourself know how he falls in love with every one that he meets. You know it, and so does Mimi.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“What I say. Not long ago I learnt that he used to be in love with Mimi herself when he was a young man, and that he used to send her poetry, and that there really was something between them. Mimi is heart-sore about it to this day”—and Woloda burst out laughing.
“Impossible!” I cried in astonishment.