Stories

“See, he didn’t want to live at home, he got into the learned line. So, let him! Each to his own place.”

Once just before Lent there was a heavy rain with hail; the old man and Varvara went to the window to look, and—lo and behold, Anisim was driving up in a sledge from the station. They were not expecting him at all. He came in uneasy and alarmed at something; and so he remained all the while afterwards; and his behavior was somehow casual. He was in no hurry to leave, and it looked as if he had been dismissed from his job. Varvara was glad he had come; she kept glancing at him somehow slyly, sighing and shaking her head.

“How can it be, dear hearts?” she said. “Why, the lad’s nearly twenty-eight and he’s still going around a bachelor—oh, tush, tush …”

From the other room all that could be heard of her soft, even speech was: “Oh, tush, tush.” She began to whisper with the old man and Aksinya, and their faces, too, acquired a sly and mysterious expression, as with conspirators.

They decided to get Anisim married.

“Oh, tush, tush! … The younger brother’s been married a long time,” said Varvara, “and you go on without a mate, like a cock at the market. What sort of thing is that? You’ll get married, God willing, then go to work if you like, and the wife can stay home and help us. There’s no order in your life, lad, and I can see you’ve forgotten all order. Oh, tush, tush, there’s nothing but sin with you townsfolk.”

When the Tsybukins married, the most beautiful brides were chosen for them, since they were rich. For Anisim, too, a beautiful girl was found. He himself was of uninteresting, unremarkable appearance; along with his weak, sickly build and small stature, he had full, plump cheeks, as if he puffed them out; his eyes never blinked, and their gaze was sharp; he had a sparse red beard, and when he pondered, he kept putting it in his mouth and chewing it; besides, he drank often, and it showed in his face and gait. But when he was told that they had a very beautiful bride for him, he said:

“Well, and I’m not so lopsided myself. All of us Tsybukins are handsome, I must say.”

Just below the town was the village of Torguyevo. Half of it had recently been incorporated into the town, the other half remained a village. In the first half, in her own little house, lived a certain widow; she had a sister, completely poor, who did day labor, and this sister had a daughter, Lipa, a young girl who also did day labor. Lipa’s beauty was already being talked about in Torguyevo, only everybody was disheartened by her terrible poverty; they reasoned that some older man or widower would marry her, overlooking her poverty, or would take her for himself “just so,” and her mother would be fed along with her. Varvara found out about Lipa from the matchmakers and paid a visit to Torguyevo.

Then a showing was arranged in the aunt’s house, quite properly, with food and wine, and Lipa wore a new pink dress specially made for the occasion, and a crimson ribbon shone like a flame in her hair. She was thin, frail, wan, with fine, tender features, darkened from working in the open air; a sad, timid smile never left her face, and her gaze was childlike—trusting and full of curiosity

She was young, still a girl, with barely noticeable breasts, but she could already marry, since she was of age. She was indeed beautiful, and the only thing that could be found displeasing in her was her big, mannish hands, which now hung down idly like two big claws.

“There’s no dowry, but we don’t mind,” the old man said to the aunt, “we also took one from a poor family for our son Stepan, and now we can’t praise her enough. Around the house, or at work—a golden touch.”

Lipa stood by the door and it was as if she wanted to say: “Do what you like with me, I trust you,” but her mother Praskovya, the day laborer, hid in the kitchen, dying from timidity. Once, when she was still young, a merchant whose floors she used to scrub stamped his feet at her in anger, and she was so badly frightened, so mortified, that the fear remained in her soul for the rest of her life. And from fear her hands and feet always trembled, her cheeks trembled. Sitting in the kitchen, she tried to overhear what the guests were talking about and kept crossing herself, pressing her fingers to her forehead and glancing at the icon. Anisim, slightly drunk, opened the kitchen door and said casually:

“What are you sitting in here for, precious mother? We miss you.”

And Praskovya, turning shy, pressing her hands to her skinny, emaciated breast, answered:

“Ah, mercy, sir … We’re much pleased with you, sir.”

After the showing, the day of the wedding was set. Then, at home, Anisim kept pacing the rooms, whistling, or, suddenly remembering something, would lapse into thought and stare at the floor, fixedly, piercingly, as if he wanted to penetrate deep into the ground with his gaze. He expressed neither pleasure at getting married, married soon, on Krasnaya Gorka,¹ nor any desire to see his fiancee, but simply whistled. And it was obvious that he was getting married only because his father and stepmother wanted it and because it was a village custom: a son should marry so that there would be a helper in the house. Going away, he was in no hurry and generally behaved differently than on his previous visits—was somehow especially casual and said things that were out of place.

III

In the village of Shikalovo lived two dressmakers, sisters, who belonged to the Flagellants.² They were hired to make new dresses for the wedding, and they often came for fittings and lingered a long time over tea. Varvara had a brown dress made, with black lace and bugles, and Aksinya a light green dress with a yellow front and train. When the dressmakers were done, Tsybukin paid them not in cash but in goods from his shop, and they went away from him sadly, carrying bundles of stearine candles and sardines, which they did not need at all, and when they got out of the village into the fields, they sat down on a knoll and began to cry.

Anisim came three days before the wedding in all new clothes. He wore shiny rubber galoshes and a red string tipped with beads instead of a tie, and over his shoulders hung a coat, also new, his arms not in the sleeves.

After gravely saying a prayer, he greeted his father and gave him ten silver roubles and ten half roubles; he gave the same amount to Varvara, and to Aksinya twenty quarter roubles. The main charm of this present was precisely that all the coins, as if specially chosen, were new and glittered in the sun. Trying to look grave and serious, Anisim strained his face and puffed his cheeks, and he gave off a smell of drink—he had probably rushed out to the buffet at every station. And again there was some sort of casualness, something superfluous in the man. Later Anisim and the old man had tea and a bite to eat, while Varvara fingered the new roubles and asked about local people who were living in town.

“It’s all right, thank God, they have a good life,” said Anisim. “Only Ivan Yegorov had something happen in his family: his old woman, Sofya Nikiforovna, died. Of consumption. They ordered a memorial dinner for the repose of her soul at a confectioner’s, two roubles fifty a person. And there was grape wine. Peasants came— our locals—it was two-fifty for them, too. They didn’t eat anything. What does a peasant know about sauce!”

“Two-fifty!” said the old man and shook his head.