Mimi's Marriage

by Lidiia Ivanovna Veselitskaia

Another prospect: to give up all hope of marrying and to reconcile herself to the idea of becoming a useless old maid. (That pretty Mimotchka, who already at seven years old knew what suited her and cried if they tied her hair with a ribbon she didn't like!)

But supposing that she gives up the idea of marrying. How is she to live in that case? how exist if, which God forbid, her mamma were to die (and she certainly will die some day) and there would be nobody left to look after Mimotchka's toilettes and her meals, nobody to sell and pawn things, to send away creditors, to borrow and tearfully squeeze money out of relations and friends? Mimotchka is such a child. She would be lost by herself.... Live by her work? earn her own living? become a lady-doctor, clerk, or book-keeper?... But Mimotchka has been educated with quite different ideas!...

As for medicine, we had better not mention it at all. At the mere thought, the mere recollection of Mimotchka's innocent-looking, downcast eyes, I could not bring myself to suggest such an improper occupation to her as the study of anatomy. And her nerves!... Do you know, Mimotchka is such a little coward that, every night before going to sleep, she takes a lighted candle and looks under the bed, the armchairs, and tables, so as to make quite sure that there is no Rocambole, Jack Sheppard, or dreadful beggar hidden there. She even looks in the ventilators of the stove.... She is so afraid, so afraid of everything! How could you ever accustom her to the sight of suffering, of blood, and of death?

It is equally absurd to imagine Mimotchka a clerk, for instance, in the office of a railway company, to imagine her in a room furnished with tables and desks at which are seated dreadful, unknown men. Of course they would all admire her, and all fall in love with her. But in general, for her to have to sit in the same room with men from ten in the morning till five in the evening.... Say what you like, it's not proper! Don't think, however, that Mimotchka had never sat in the same room with men. She had even been held in their arms to the enchanting strains of fashionable Waltzes played by Rosenberg or Schmidt. To tell you the truth (and quite in confidence), a certain young guardsman had kissed her more than once in convenient corners both before and after the "proposal." But in the first place she had never told anybody about it except her particular friend Mdlle. X. and Douniasha, her maid, so that neither mamma nor anyone else had any suspicion of it; and, secondly, he really Was her fiancé. Of course, if all Mimotchka's valseurs had kissed her, I do not say but that it would have been wrong, very wrong; but, anyhow, it seems to me that it would have been less improper than her sitting all day in some office. All these valseurs, at any rate, were young men of her own class, introduced into society by her acquaintances, but who knows what sort of people there are in offices? Jews, perhaps, or tradespeople.... And who can be sure that some of them might not kiss Mimotchka? She is still such a child!...

Perhaps Mimotchka might give lessons, courir le cachet? But lessons in what—French? She has read Ponson-du-Terrail and Co., read both Belot and Malot, read Octave Feuillet, but of grammar she has only the most confused ideas, and a knowledge of grammar is required in a teacher. And then to give lessons—that again means going about the streets alone and risking to be taken for Heaven knows what.... Poor Mimotchka is so pretty and feminine that, if she has not a proper companion with her and a footman walking behind her, she might be taken for goodness knows what!

Mimotchka neither knows how to sew nor cut out; she has never been taught to; and anyhow she could not become a dressmaker! She only knows how to cut out lamp-shades and do crochet. But then doing crochet does not bring in much.

In fact, all this talk of woman's work and woman's independence shows itself to be pure nonsense. And why argue about it when woman's calling and duties are plainly shown to her both by God and nature. She is to be a wife and a mother, the companion of man, from whose rib she was created for that purpose. Therefore, Mimotchka, wait, look out and secure a bridegroom—of course one that can be depended upon, and who has means. There is the third prospect for you, the third (and, it would seem, the only possible) way out for you from your present position.

There are some husbands predestinated by Fate itself for girls like Mimotchka, for girls who are poor, but have been spoilt, brought up in luxury, and are unaccustomed to privations. There are two classes of such husbands—either rich old bachelors, who have wasted their strength, health, intellect, and senses in a stormily spent youth, wasted everything except their too easily got money, and have tried every sensation that this money can give them, except that of possessing for their "very own" an innocent young wife, to purchase which, however, it is never too late; or else there are old bachelors in the contrary position to the first, who have begun their life and career in want and privation, timid, calculating, having been obliged to deny themselves everything in youth, and having at last scraped together the desired capital by fair means or foul, and attained the longed-for rank, position, period, and age which will enable them to contract a marriage with a young and pretty girl.

Heaven was not deaf to mamma's prayers, but sent her Spiridon Ivanovitch. Through the aunts and friends the marriage was settled and interviews arranged—of course everything being conducted in the most correct manner.