“Had you ever seen this Danilo before to-day?” her mistress asked Pelagia.
“How could I have seen him before to-day? This was the first time. Aksinia picked him up somewhere—bad luck to him! Why must I have him thrown at my head?”
That day the whole family kept their eyes fixed on Pelagia’s face as she was serving the dinner and teased her about the driver. Pelagia blushed furiously and giggled with confusion.
“What a shameful thing it must be to get married!” thought Grisha. “What a horribly shameful thing!”
The whole dinner was too salty, blood was oozing from the half-cooked chickens, and, to complete the disaster, Pelagia kept dropping the knives and forks and dishes as if her hands had been a pair of rickety shelves. No one blamed her, however, for every one knew what her state of mind must be.
Once only did papa angrily throw down his napkin and exclaim to mamma:
“What is this craze you have for match-making? Can’t you let them manage it for themselves if they want to get married?”
After dinner the neighbouring cooks and maids kept flitting in and out of the kitchen, and were whispering together there until late in the evening. Heaven knows how they had scented the approaching wedding! Waking up at midnight, Grisha heard his nurse and the cook murmuring together in his nursery behind the curtain. The nurse was trying to convince the cook of something, and the latter was alternately sobbing and giggling. When he fell asleep, Grisha saw in his dreams Pelagia being spirited away by the Evil One and a witch.
Next day quiet reigned once more, and from that time forward life in the kitchen jogged on as if there were no such thing in the world as a driver. Only nurse would don her new shawl from time to time and sally forth for a couple of hours, evidently to a conference, with a serious and triumphant expression on her face. Pelagia and the driver did not see one another, and if any one mentioned his name to her she would fly into a rage and exclaim:
“Bad luck to him! As if I ever thought of him at all—ugh!”