Chapter 12 Summary

Kuriatin has promised to find a buyer for The Mammoth, which has been lying outside on a site that Frank wants to sell. But he has failed to follow through. Kuriatin tells Frank a story supposedly from his old village about a peasant who married a young woman. Frank thinks that this, like many of Kuriatin's stories, is probably something he made up just to make a knowing comment on the fact that Frank has hired a woman to take care of the children. In a conversation with Tvyordov at the press, Frank realizes that Tvyordov is making a comment quite similar to that of Kuriatin about his taking in a woman so soon after his wife has left. Neither of these opinions especially worries Frank, but he is concerned about how the staff at 22 Lipka will react. Toma expresses the feeling of...