French girl and one is a Greek. Well worth the money.'
The guard thought a moment and said:
'No, I thank you. In view of your favourable disposition, allow me to enquire now how much you ask for your exertions in regard to a bride?'
'I don't ask much. Give me twenty-five roubles and the stuff for a dress, as is usual, and I will say thank you . . . but for the dowry, that's a different account.'
Stytchkin folded his arms over his chest and fell to pondering in silence. After some thought he heaved a sigh and said:
'That's dear. . . .'
'It's not at all dear, Nikolay Nikolayitch! In old days when there were lots of weddings one did do it cheaper, but nowadays what are our earnings? If you make fifty roubles in a month that is not a fast, you may be thankful. It's not on weddings we make our money, my good sir.'
Stytchkin looked at the matchmaker in amazement and shrugged his shoulders.
'H'm! . . . Do you call fifty roubles little?' he asked.
'Of course it is little! In old days we sometimes made more than a hundred.'
'H'm! I should never have thought it was possible to earn such a sum by these jobs. Fifty roubles! It is not every man that earns as much! Pray drink your wine. . . .'
The matchmaker drained her glass without winking. Stytchkin looked her over from head to foot in silence, then said:
'Fifty roubles. . . . Why, that is six hundred roubles a year. . . .
Please take some more. . . With such dividends, you know, Lyubov
Grigoryevna, you would have no difficulty in making a match for
yourself. . . .'
'For myself,' laughed the matchmaker, 'I am an old woman.'
'Not at all. . . . You have such a figure, and your face is plump and fair, and all the rest of it.'
The matchmaker was embarrassed. Stytchkin was also embarrassed and sat down beside her.
'You are still very attractive,' said he; 'if you met with a practical, steady, careful husband, with his salary and your earnings you might even attract him very much, and you'd get on very well together. . . .'
'Goodness knows what you are saying, Nikolay Nikolayitch.'
'Well, I meant no harm. . . .'
A silence followed. Stytchkin began loudly blowing his nose, while the matchmaker turned crimson, and looking bashfully at him, asked:
'And how much do you get, Nikolay Nikolayitch?'
'I? Seventy-five roubles, besides tips. . . . Apart from that we make something out of candles and hares.'
'You go hunting, then?'
'No. Passengers who travel without tickets are called hares with us.'
Another minute passed in silence. Stytchkin got up and walked about the room in excitement.
'I don't want a young wife,' said he. 'I am a middle-aged man, and I want someone who . . . as it might be like you . . . staid and settled and a figure something like yours. . . .'
'Goodness knows what you are saying . . .' giggled the matchmaker, hiding her crimson face in her kerchief.
'There is no need to be long thinking about it. You are after my own heart, and you suit me in your qualities. I am a practical, sober man, and if you like me . . . what could be better? Allow me to make you a proposal!'
The matchmaker dropped a tear, laughed, and, in token of her consent, clinked glasses with Stytchkin.
'Well,' said the happy railway guard, 'now allow me to explain to you the behaviour and manner of life I desire from you. . . . I am a strict, respectable, practical man. I take a gentlemanly view of everything. And I desire that my wife should be strict also, and should understand that to her I am a benefactor and the foremost person in the world.'
He sat down, and, heaving a deep sigh, began expounding to his bride-elect his views on domestic life and a wife's duties.
THE LOOKING-GLASS
NEW YEAR'S EVE. Nellie, the daughter of a landowner and general, a young and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married, was sitting in her room, gazing with exhausted, half-closed eyes into the looking-glass. She was pale, tense, and as motionless as the looking-glass.
The non-existent but apparent vista of a long, narrow corridor with endless rows of candles, the reflection of her face, her hands, of the frame—all this was already clouded in mist and merged into a boundless grey sea. The sea was undulating, gleaming and now and then flaring crimson. . . .
Looking at Nellie's motionless eyes and parted lips, one could hardly say whether she was asleep or awake, but nevertheless she was seeing. At first she saw only the smile and soft, charming expression of someone's eyes, then against the shifting grey background there gradually appeared the outlines of a head, a face, eyebrows, beard. It was he, the destined one, the object of long dreams and hopes. The destined one was for Nellie everything, the significance of life, personal happiness, career, fate. Outside him, as on the grey background of the looking-glass, all was dark, empty, meaningless. And so it was not strange that, seeing before her a handsome, gently smiling face, she was conscious of bliss, of an unutterably sweet dream that could not be expressed in speech or on paper. Then she heard his voice, saw herself living under the same roof with him, her life merged into his. Months and years flew by against the grey background. And Nellie saw her future distinctly in all its details.
Picture followed picture against the grey background. Now Nellie saw herself one winter night knocking at the door of Stepan Lukitch, the district doctor. The old dog hoarsely and lazily barked behind the gate. The doctor's windows were in darkness. All was silence.
'For God's sake, for God's sake!' whispered Nellie.
But at last the garden gate creaked and Nellie saw the doctor's cook.
'Is the doctor at home?'
'His honour's asleep,' whispered the cook into her sleeve, as though afraid of waking her master.
'He's only just got home from his fever patients, and gave orders he was not to be waked.'
But Nellie scarcely heard the cook. Thrusting her aside, she rushed headlong into the doctor's house. Running through some dark and stuffy rooms, upsetting two or three chairs, she at last reached the doctor's bedroom. Stepan Lukitch was lying on his bed, dressed, but without his coat, and with pouting lips was breathing into his open hand. A little night-light glimmered faintly beside him. Without uttering a word Nellie sat down and began to cry. She wept bitterly, shaking all over.
'My husband is ill!' she sobbed out. Stepan Lukitch was silent. He slowly sat up, propped his head on his hand, and looked at his visitor with fixed, sleepy eyes. 'My husband is ill!' Nellie continued, restraining her sobs. 'For mercy's sake come quickly. Make haste. . . . Make haste!'
'Eh?' growled the doctor, blowing into his hand.
'Come! Come this very minute! Or . . . it's terrible to think! For mercy's sake!'
And pale, exhausted Nellie, gasping and swallowing her tears, began describing to the doctor her husband's illness, her unutterable terror. Her sufferings would have touched the heart of a stone, but the doctor looked at her, blew into his open hand, and—not a movement.
'I'll come to-morrow!' he muttered.
'That's impossible!' cried Nellie. 'I know my husband has typhus!
At once . . . this very minute you are needed!'
'I . . . er . . . have only just come in,' muttered the doctor.
