Mimi's Marriage

by Lidiia Ivanovna Veselitskaia

Spiridon Ivanovitch set about his cure without delay and with great zeal. He liked being doctored and understood all about it. Not satisfied with the punctilious fulfilment of his own doctor's prescriptions, he secretly consulted other doctors, consulted the invalids with whom he made acquaintance at the baths and springs, consulted the chemist and other tradespeople, bought heaps of medical works, pamphlets, and manuals, bought medicinal wines and medicines advertised in the papers, discovered that he had some fresh malady every day, and expounded the symptoms of his illness to his doctor so significantly and with so many details, that the young Frenchman, while listening to him with profound and polite attention, could not help glancing stealthily and with tender commiseration at pretty pale Mimotchka, and twirling the end of his silky moustaches, said to her in a look, "Poor little thing! and so pretty!" ...

Spiridon Ivanovitch decided that Mimotchka should make a cure for anæmia and nerves. Mamma had asked him so much about it! So Mimotchka drank the "source Mesdames" and took baths, and Walked up and down in the park. But, as her cure was less complicated and serious than Spiridon Ivanovitch's cure, she still had a good deal of spare time, which she employed in watching the people and in looking at her new dresses. And as both these occupations were very congenial to her tastes, she was not dull. The season was one of the most successful and most brilliant. At the waters there was Strauss, there was Patti; there was an English royal personage with his wife; there were American millionaires with their daughters, and lots of cocottes and aristocrats besides.... There were no end of stories about and two or three scandals.... The weather was lovely and warm, perhaps even too warm. But what walks there were, what riding parties in the evening on the shores of the Allier, what concerts and dances in the evening at the Casino! Of course Mimotchka did not make any acquaintances—society is so mixed at watering-places!—but still, without knowing anyone, it was amusing to look at other people's toilettes and watch others' intrigues. Altogether she Was very much amused. And in answer to her cousin Zina and her friends, the three sisters Poltavsteff, who asked her if she was happy, Mimotchka wrote: "So happy, so happy.... Jamais je ne me suis tant amusée qu'à Vichy. Figurez-vous ..." and so on.

Time flew on quickly and imperceptibly. Spiridon Ivanovitch's cure was finished. He had got thinner, but felt brisker and healthier. Mimotchka was blooming, and had grown even prettier in the pure air of the South of France. One month's leave yet remained. Spiridon Ivanovitch asked his wife to decide where they should spend this last month—in Italy, Switzerland, or Paris?... Doctor Souly's pamphlet recommends some quiet corner in Switzerland for an after-cure, but Mimotchka preferred Paris. Spiridon Ivanovitch willingly submitted to this decision, and, having liberally paid the landlady, the dark-eyed doctor, and others, the young people packed up their baggage and went back to Paris, where the honeymoon really began. Just at that time Spiridon Ivanovitch received a good round sum from his tenants, and Mimotchka was in a state of perfect bliss, buying right and left everything that took her fancy. Oh, her honeymoon!... They stayed at an expensive and very good hotel. In the morning the general got up first and read the Russian and French newspapers while he drank his coffee, but Mimotchka lay in bed a long time after. Then she got up when she liked, and without hurrying began her toilet. Every day she had a new kind of soap, new kinds of scents, toilet waters and pomatums. And what stockings, boots, and garters she bought herself!... Oh, her honeymoon!...

When she was dressed Mimotchka went in to her husband, who kissed her per-fumed hand, and, holding it in his, bent down his bald forehead for her to kiss. They breakfasted off hors d'œuvre, lobster, and côtelettes en papillottes, and, having thus fortified themselves, they went out walking or driving to see museums or the environs of Paris.... Before dinner Spiridon Ivanovitch returned home to have a nap, while Mimotchka went shopping and bought more and more.... Then came dinner, and afterwards a theatre, cirque, or café concert.... Spiridon Ivanovitch knew Paris well, and was particularly well acquainted with its places of amusement; and, as he held the opinion that abroad a respectable woman might go anywhere, because nobody knew her, he took his wife to both "Mabille" and "Bullier," and to all the Eldorados besides, so as to show her the cocottes of both sides of the Seine.

Having thus spent their honeymoon, the young couple returned to Petersburg with empty purses, with an increased number of trunks and bandboxes, with a store of amusing and agreeable reminiscences, and on much more intimate and friendly terms with each other than when they had started.

All the relations met Mimotchka with open arms. She was no longer a portionless girl, looking out for a husband, whom the aunts could keep in the background and snub if they liked.... Now she was the wife of a general commanding a division, the wife of a highly-respected and wealthy man, a lady with fresh toilettes from Paris and a position in society.

Besides her position in society, Mimotchka was before long in what is termed an "interesting position." To tell the truth, this last position was somewhat burdensome to her, and, if mamma and Spiridon Ivanovitch had not watched over her like a goddess, Mimotchka would have made away with herself. But, when all the suffering and misery were over, when the heir of Spiridon Ivanovitch occupied his appointed place in this world of grief and tears, when his screams began to resound through the general's large house, and Mimotchka was up and well again, then she was glad in her heart and well satisfied. Glad both because she had grown prettier and plumper, and because now she has a real live baby of her own, while her friends, the three sisters Poltavsteff, are still painting on china and singing Italian arias and gipsy songs, in the vain hope of attracting some one who can give them une position dans le monde and a real, live baby.

And Mimotchka possesses both the one and the other. And although all the three sisters Poltavsteff, when they come to see Mimotchka and admire the baby, kissing his soft, dimpled little hands and feet, say with one accord that they can only understand marrying for love, and that not one of them would marry except for love; still Mimotchka knows perfectly well that this is only talk, and that, had Spiridon Ivanovitch taken a fancy to one of them instead of her, any of the three would have married him directly. It's no laughing matter. He is in command of a division, and a whole division is under his inspection. And even more awaits him in the future. Spiridon Ivanovitch's career is not nearly finished.... It would have been indeed stupid to refuse such a partie.

Why then, now, six years after marriage, is Mimotchka dull? Why does she get thin and pale? What can she want? She has her family. She has her son, her husband, and her mother. She has plenty of money, carriages, and a box at the opera. What more can she desire? Mimotchka herself does not know what she wants. She does not want anything. She is simply tired of life. It is quite immaterial to her whether she lives or dies. Dies? Oh yes, and even now, directly. So she says, and poor mamma cannot hear it without tears and sighs. She sees that her daughter is really ill, that she is hiding something, and that she gets weaker and more irritable every day.... Mamma implores Mimotchka to consult Doctor Variashski (mamma believes in him as she does in the Almighty). But Mimotchka is obstinate and angry, and says, "Ah, laissez done! je me porte à merveille! Je suis tout à fait bien." And mamma sighs and Mimotchka gets paler and thinner.

The aunts are much concerned at the change in Mimotchka's appearance.