XIII
DURING those days snow fell, and they were only waiting for that snow at Syery’s farmstead, so that the road might be in order for the celebration of the wedding.
On the twelfth of February, towards evening, in the gloom of the cold entrance lobby, a low-toned conversation was in progress. Beside the stove stood the Bride, a yellow kerchief besprinkled with black polka-dots pulled well down on her forehead, staring at her bark-shoes. By the door stood short-legged Deniska, hatless, in a heavy undercoat, with drooping shoulders. He, too, was gazing downward, at some women’s high shoes with metal tips, which he was twisting about in his hands. The boots belonged to the Bride. Deniska had mended them, and had come to receive five kopeks for his work.
“But I haven’t got it,” the Bride was saying, “and I think Kuzma Ilitch is taking a nap. Just you wait until to-morrow.”
“I can’t possibly wait,” replied Deniska in a sing-song, meditative voice, as he picked at the metal tip with his finger nail.
“Well, what are we going to do about it?”
Deniska reflected, sighed, and, shaking back his thick hair, suddenly raised his head. “Well, and what’s the good of wagging one’s tongue for nothing?” he said loudly and decisively, without glancing at the Bride, and mastering his shyness. “Has Tikhon Ilitch said anything to you?”
“Yes, he has,” replied the Bride. “He has downright bored me with his talk.”
“In that case I will come at once with my father. It won’t hurt Kuzma Ilitch to get up immediately and drink tea—”
The Bride thought it over. “That’s as you like—”
Deniska set the shoes on the window-sill and went away, without making any further mention of money. And half an hour later the knocking of bark-shoes coated with snow became audible on the porch. Deniska had returned with Syery—and Syery, for some unknown reason, was girt about the hips, over his kazak coat, with a red belt. Kuzma came out to receive them. Deniska and Syery crossed themselves for a long time toward the dark corner, then tossed back their hair and raised their faces.
“Matchmaker or not, yet a fine man!” began Syery without haste, in an unusually easy and pleasant tone. “You have an adopted daughter to marry off. I have a son who wants a wife. In good agreement, for their happiness, let us discuss the matter between us.”
“But she has a mother, you know,” said Kuzma.
“Her mother is no housewife; she’s a homeless widow, her cottage is dilapidated, and no one knows where she is,” replied Syery, still maintaining his tone. “Consider her as an orphan!” And he made a low, stately reverence.
Repressing a sickly smile, Kuzma ordered the Bride to be summoned.
“Run, hunt her up,” Syery commanded Deniska, speaking in a whisper as if they were in church.
“Here I am,” said the Bride, emerging from behind the door in back of the stove and bowing to Syery.
Silence ensued. The samovar, which stood on the floor, its grating glowing red through the darkness, boiled and bubbled. Their faces were not visible, but it could be felt that all of them were perturbed.
“Well, daughter, how is it to be? decide,” said Kuzma.
The Bride reflected.
“I have nothing against the young man—”
“And how about you, Deniska?”
Deniska also remained silent. “Well, anyhow, I’ve got to marry some time or other. Possibly, with God’s aid, this will go all right—”
Thereupon the two matchmakers exchanged congratulations on the affair’s having been begun. The samovar was carried away to the servants’ hall. Odnodvorka, who had learned the news earlier than all the rest and had run over from the promontory, lighted the small lamp in the servants’ hall, sent Koshel off for vodka and sunflower seeds, seated the bride and the bridegroom beneath the holy pictures, poured them out tea, sat down herself alongside Syery, and, in order to banish the awkwardness, started to sing in a high, sharp voice, glancing the while at Deniska and his long eyelashes:
“When in our little garden,
Amid our grape vines green,
There walked and roamed a gallant youth,
Comely of face, and white, so white....”
But Kuzma wandered to and fro from corner to corner in the dark hall, shaking his head, wrinkling up his face and muttering: “Aï, great heavens! Aï, what a shame, what folly, what a wretched affair!”
On the following day, every one who had heard from Syery about this festival grinned and offered him advice: “You might help the young couple a bit!” Koshel said the same: “They are a young couple starting life, and young people ought to be helped!” Syery went off home in silence. Presently he brought to the Bride, who was ironing in the ante-room, two iron kettles and a hank of black bread. “Here, dear little daughter-in-law,” he said in confusion, “take these; your mother-in-law sends them. Perhaps they may be of use. I haven’t anything else—if I had had, I would have jumped out of my shirt with joy!”
The Bride bowed and thanked him. She was ironing a curtain, sent by Tikhon Ilitch “in lieu of a veil,” and her eyes were wet and red. Syery tried to comfort her, saying that things weren’t honey-sweet with him, either; but he hesitated, sighed, and, placing the kettles on the window-sill, went away. “I have put the thread in the littlest kettle,” he mumbled.
“Thanks, batiushka,” the Bride thanked him once more, in that same kindly and special tone which she had used only toward Ivanushka; and the moment Syery was gone she suddenly indulged in a faint ironic smile and began to sing:
“When in our little garden ...”
Kuzma thrust his head out of the hall and looked sternly at her over the top of his eyeglasses. She subsided into silence.
“Listen to me,” said Kuzma. “Perhaps you would like to drop this whole business?”
“It’s too late, now,” replied the Bride in a low voice. “As it is, one can’t get rid of the disgrace. Doesn’t everybody know whose money will pay for the feast? And we have already begun to spend it.”
Kuzma shrugged his shoulders. It was true: Tikhon Ilitch, along with the window-curtain, had sent twenty-five rubles, a sack of fine wheaten flour, millet, a skinny pig. But there was no reason why she should ruin her life simply because they had already killed the pig!
“Okh!” said Kuzma. “How you have tortured me! ‘Disgraced’! ‘we’ve spent it’— Are you cheaper than the pig?”
“Whether I’m cheaper or not, what is done is done—the dead are not brought back from the cemetery,” firmly and simply replied the Bride; and, sighing, she folded the warm, freshly-ironed curtain neatly. “Will you have your dinner immediately?” Her face was calm.
“Well, that settles it! You can do nothing with her!” thought Kuzma, and he said: “Well, manage your affairs as you see fit—”