‘What next!’ she said with scorn. ‘I don’t want a husband.’
‘You say that now, Olyessia. Nearly every girl says the same, but still they marry. You wait a bit: you’ll meet somebody and you’ll fall in love—and you’ll follow him, not only to town, but to the end of the earth.’
‘No, no.... We won’t talk of that, please,’ she cut me short in vexation. ‘Why should we talk like this? I ask you not to.’
‘How funny you are, Olyessia. Do you really believe you’ll never love a man in your life? You’re so young, handsome, strong. If your blood once catches fire, no oaths of yours will help you.’
‘Well, ... then, I’ll love,’ Olyessia answered with a challenge in her flashing eyes. ‘I shan’t ask anybody’s leave.’
‘So you’ll have to marry too,’ I teased her.
‘I suppose you’re meaning the church?’ she guessed.
‘Exactly—the church. The priest will lead you round the altar; the deacon will sing, “Isaiah, rejoice!” they’ll put a crown on your head....’
Olyessia cast down her eyes and shook her head, faintly smiling.
‘No, dear.... Perhaps you won’t like what I say, but in our family no one was ever married in church. My mother and my grandmother before her managed to live without that.... Besides, we must not enter a church....’