is gone now!" and so on, and so on. From Nicola (for Papa never
spoke to us of his gambling) I had learnt that he (Papa) had been
very fortunate in play that winter, and so had won an
extraordinary amount of money, all of which he had placed in the
bank after vowing that he would play no more that spring.
Evidently, it was his fear of being unable to resist again doing
so that was rendering him anxious to leave for the country as
soon as possible. Indeed, he ended by deciding not to wait until
I had entered the University, but to take the girls to Petrovskoe
immediately after Easter, and to leave Woloda and myself to
follow them at a later season.

All that winter, until the opening of spring, Woloda had been
inseparable from Dubkoff, while at the same time the pair of them
had cooled greatly towards Dimitri. Their chief amusements (so I
gathered from conversations overheard) were continual drinking of
champagne, sledge-driving past the windows of a lady with whom
both of them appeared to be in love, and dancing with her--not at
children's parties, either, but at real balls! It was this last
fact which, despite our love for one another, placed a vast gulf
between Woloda and myself. We felt that the distance between a
boy still taking lessons under a tutor and a man who danced at
real, grown-up balls was too great to allow of their exchanging
mutual ideas. Katenka, too, seemed grown-up now, and read
innumerable novels; so that the idea that she would some day be
getting married no longer seemed to me a joke. Yet, though she
and Woloda were thus grown-up, they never made friends with one
another, but, on the contrary, seemed to cherish a mutual
contempt. In general, when Katenka was at home alone, nothing but
novels amused her, and they but slightly; but as soon as ever a