Mimi's Marriage

by Lidiia Ivanovna Veselitskaia

The conversation flagged. Mimotchka was dreadfully ashamed. She felt that she had lost her dignity as a general's wife, and tormented herself trying to think what she could say.

Valerian Nicolaevitch silently enjoyed her agitation and trouble. It was not only Mimotchka's appearance that pleased him, but her very silentness and slowness of comprehension. What a good listener she was! In Valerian Nicolaevitch's eyes this was a most precious quality, because he liked to be the only one to talk. How tired he was of those talkative women, with their pretensions to wit and intelligence, who had read a little, would chatter about something, interrupt without listening to what you were saying, cavil at your ideas and catch up your words.... How different Mimotchka was! What a depth of womanliness there was in her. She possessed what the poet calls "das ewig Weibliche." ... She was not clever, certainly; but this very want of cleverness was so pleasing in her. And why should she be clever? What would it add to that pure, limpid look in her eyes? She had both tact and grace. And although she was not clever, still she had a very charming manner, not too free and yet not too shy. She was very, very charming, and he had not been so taken with anyone for a long time. He intended that the dénouement should take place at Kislovodsk, and yesterday evening, according to his programme, a preliminary tête-a-tête ride should have taken place in order to reassure Mimotchka, and quiet her alarm, as he saw that, in spite of everything, she was still on her guard.... And then suddenly she wouldn't go. Just think of it! So that's the way, is it? Very well! Now she must be punished, and made to ask him to come to Kislovodsk.

And so he sat there by her, gazing mournfully and coldly before him, and cutting off the tops of the grass with his stick. The conversation flagged ...?

The sister of the actress, Mdlle. Lenskaia, passed close by them. A little old man, thawing under the influences of beauty, like a candle under the rays of the Caucasian sun, was giving her his arm.

Mimotchka began talking about her. The Lenskis interested her very much, because she had long been jealous of them on Valerian Nicolaevitch's account, and she often asked him about them. He, according to the humour he was in, either lauded them to the skies or trampled them in the mud. This time Mdlle. Lenskaia turned up at a very lucky moment for herself. Valerian Nicolaevitch began extolling her. There was a real woman for you. She was worthy of bearing the high and holy name of woman.... She lived herself and gave fresh life to those around her.... Like the sun, she shed light and warmth on all those who drew breath in her presence.... In her old age, when she drew near her end, her conscience would not reproach her in any way. She would have fulfilled her earthly task. She would have lived and loved.... She is no mere dressmaker's dummy, only made for trying on Parisian toilettes, she is a living creature, with warm blood running in her veins, with nerves vibrating in her, and life brimming over within her. ... She is not a puppet whose strings are pulled by public opinion.... And he poured forth a flood of stern and terrible philippics against the women of society, those egotists, those hard-hearted, empty-headed coquettes.... A nice education they have given them! Their mothers impregnate them with their absurd morality with as much zeal as they lay camphor in their carpets and shawls to keep away the moth. And they attain their object. The moth does not touch their shawls, and passion does not come near their well-brought-up daughters. But the atmosphere that surrounds them is hard to breathe in. A man feels half suffocated. He feels dull in their presence.... Yes, intolerably dull.... And is it surprising that men flee from them to such women as Lenskaia?

Mimotchka was ready to cry. He was dull with her.... He had always felt dull in her society.... She was only a dressmaker's dummy for trying on dresses.... He would leave her and go to Lenskaia. For shame, for shame!... And he continued thundering against the women of society, interlarding his speech with verses and quotations. Love moves the world. There are women unworthy of the happiness of love, unworthy of high and holy moments. A woman incapable of love is like the foolish virgin without oil.... And the Lord will say to her, "Depart, I know you not." ... Watch.... Yes.... And old age will come, terrible, merciless old age, with its grey hairs and wrinkles, and will seize upon the heart with its cold hand, and the heart will quail with fear and will thirst for life, but it will be late, too late.... And then came a verse from Musset, and then one from Fett.

Valerian Nicolaevitch got more and more excited by his own eloquence. Lowering his voice now to a whisper, and now raising it, he never glanced at Mimotchka, never even turned towards her, but looked straight before him as if addressing the gentlemen of the jury. And it seemed to Mimotchka that the grasshoppers and black trunks of the trees, which played the part of jury, said with one voice, "Guilty, guilty, and not deserving extenuating circumstances."

Mimotchka knew she was guilty, but she really did not know how to set things right, nor what to do to stop his anger and make him come to Kislovodsk. She looked up at him. How handsome he Was! He took off his hat, and she saw his white forehead, his wavy hair, and his brilliant eyes.... She felt drawn towards him, and yet was afraid of vexing him.... What can she say? good heavens, what can she say?... And she hung her head lower and lower, and drew figures on the sand with her parasol, while he went on saying those dreadful things.

Some ugly-looking Armenian women, in their muslin veils, went past and gazed stupidly at poor Mimotchka with their round black eyes. The passers-by smiled knowingly, and looked back at Mimotchka with a low whistle....

And Valerian Nicolaevitch continued to thunder on like an inspired prophet.