“And so what? It’s not a village. You stop at a restaurant to have a bite to eat, you order this and that, a company gathers, you have a drink—lo and behold, it’s daybreak and three or four roubles each, if you please. And when it’s with Samorodov, he likes to top it all off with coffee and cognac, and cognac’s sixty kopecks a glass, sir.”
“And it’s all a pack of lies,” the old man said admiringly. “A pack of lies!”
“I’m always with Samorodov now. It’s that same Samorodov who writes my letters. He writes magnificently. And if I was to tell you, mother,” Anisim went on merrily, addressing Varvara, “what sort of man that same Samorodov is, you wouldn’t believe it. We all call him Mukhtar,3 because he’s got the looks of an Armenian—all dark. I can see through him, I know all his dealings like the palm of my hand, mother, and he feels it and keeps following me, never leaves me, and now we’re inseparable. He seems a little scared, but he can’t live without me. Wherever I go, he goes. I’ve got a true and trusty eye, mother. I see a peasant selling a shirt at the flea market. ‘Stop! That’s a stolen shirt!’ And it turns out to be so: the shirt’s stolen.”
“But how do you know?” asked Varvara.
“No idea, I’ve got that sort of eye. I don’t know anything about this shirt, only for some reason I’m just drawn to it: it’s stolen and that’s that. They say in the department: ‘Well, Anisim’s gone hunting woodcock!’ That means looking for stolen goods. Yes … Anybody can steal, but how to hold on to it! It’s a big world, but there’s nowhere to hide stolen goods.”
“And in our village the Guntorevs had a ram and two ewes stolen last week,” Varvara said and sighed. “And there’s nobody to go looking for them … Oh, tush, tush …”
“So what? It could be done. Nothing to it.”
The day of the wedding came. It was a cool but bright and cheerful April day. From early morning troikas and pairs, bells jingling, drove around Ukleyevo, their manes and yokes decorated with multicolored ribbons. The rooks, disturbed by this driving, squawked in the pussywillows, and the starlings sang incessantly, straining their voices, as if rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tsybukins’.
In the house the tables were already laid with long fish, hams, and stuffed fowl, tins of sprats, various salted and pickled things, and numerous bottles of vodka and wine, and there was a smell of smoked sausage and spoiled lobster. And around the table, tapping his heels and sharpening one knife against another, walked the old man. Someone was calling Varvara all the time, asking for something, and she, with a lost look, breathing hard, kept running to the kitchen, where a chef sent by Kostiukov and a kitchen maid from the Khrymin Juniors had been working since dawn. Aksinya, her hair curled, with no dress on, in a corset and creaking new boots, rushed about the yard like a whirlwind, and only her bare knees and breast kept flashing. It was noisy, oaths and curses were heard; passersby stopped at the flung-open gates, and it all felt as if something extraordinary was being prepared.
“They’ve gone for the bride!”
Harness bells rang out and faded away far beyond the village … Between two and three o’clock people came running: again the bells were heard, they were bringing the bride! The church was packed, the big chandelier was lit, the choir, at old Tsybukin’s wish, sang from books. The shining lights and bright dresses dazzled Lipa, it seemed to her that the loud voices of the choir were beating on her head with hammers; her corset, which she was wearing for the first time in her life, and her high shoes squeezed her, and she looked as if she had just come out of a swoon—her eyes wide and uncomprehending. Anisim, in a black frock coat, with a red string instead of a tie, stared pensively at one spot, and each time the choir gave a loud cry, he quickly crossed himself. He was moved in his heart, he felt like weeping. This church had been familiar to him from childhood; his late mother had brought him there for communion; he had sung in the choir with the other boys; for him every little corner, every icon had its memories. Now he was getting married, he had to have a wife for propriety’s sake, but he no longer thought about that, he somehow did not remember, he completely forgot the wedding. Tears prevented him from seeing the icons, something pressed on his heart; he prayed and asked God that the inevitable misfortunes which were ready to break over him any day might somehow pass him by, as storm clouds in a time of drought pass by a village without giving a drop of rain. And so many sins had already been heaped up in the past, so many sins, and everything was so inextricable, irreparable, that it somehow even made no sense to ask forgiveness. Yet he did ask forgiveness, and even sobbed loudly, but nobody paid attention to it, thinking he was drunk.
An anxious child’s crying was heard:
“Mummy dear, take me home!”
“Quiet there,” shouted the priest.
As they returned from church, people ran after them; by the shop, by the gates, and under the windows in the yard there was also a crowd. Peasant women came to chant praises. The young couple had barely crossed the threshold when the choir, already standing in the front hall with their books, struck up loudly, with all their might; musicians, specially invited from town, began to play. Sparkling Don wine was brought in tall glasses, and the carpenter-contractor Yelizarov, a tall, lean old man with such thick eyebrows that his eyes were barely visible, said, addressing the young couple:
“Anisim, and you, little girl, love each other, lead a godly life, my little ones, and the Queen of Heaven will not abandon you.” He fell on the old man’s shoulder and sobbed. “Grigory Petrovich, let us weep, let us weep for joy!” he said in a high little voice and straightaway suddenly guffawed and went on loudly, in a bass voice: “Ho, ho, ho! And this daughter-in-law of yours is a fine one, too! She’s got everything in the right place, I’d say, all smooth, no rattling, the whole mechanism’s in order, plenty of screws.”
He was a native of the Yegoriev district, but from an early age he had been working in Ukleyevo at the factories and around the district and was at home there. He had long been known as the same tall and lean old man he was now, and had long been called Crutch. For over forty years he had done nothing but repair work at the factories, and that was perhaps the reason why he judged every person or object from the point of view of sturdiness alone: by whether or not it needed repair. And before sitting down at the table he tried several chairs to see if they were sturdy, and also poked the white-fish.
After the sparkling wine they all began to sit down at the table. The guests talked, moved chairs. The choir sang in the front hall, the music played, and at the same time the peasant women were singing in the courtyard, all as one voice—and the result was some terrible, wild mixture of sounds, which made one’s head spin.
Crutch fidgeted in his chair and nudged his neighbors with his elbows, preventing them from talking, and now wept, now laughed.
“Little ones, little ones, little ones …” he muttered quickly. “Aksinyushka dear, Varvarushka, let’s all live in peace and harmony, my gentle little hatchets …”
He drank rarely, and now became drunk from one glass of English bitters. This disgusting bitters, made of God knows what, stupefied everyone who drank it, as if it hit them on the head. Tongues became confused.
