The inn-keeper consented. But Petka had to tell all the details and the specifications. Evan Platon admitted that it required some skill to write the letter. When he had thought the matter over carefully, made some notes and discussed the subject with Petka from every angle, he took a long sheet of paper, glued a rose in the corner and wrote as follows:
"Highly respected Mademoiselle Liza:—You have never been in our village, but it is a peach. I am the cream of the place. I have here all the girls I need. I have a house and my business. But the point is I want to open a store and need a wife with experience. We have all the money. But I need some capital to begin. As you have all that and besides, I have fallen in love with you, I lay the offer before your tender feet. Your beautiful image has haunted me day and night, and your wonderful eyes follow me in my dreams, oh, you lovely rose! If you are ready to marry a merchant like myself, do not waste any time, but come over and let's have a marriage ceremony as the world has never seen here. However, before you do come, send me an early reply with a rosy yes. Most affectionately and respectfully, Petka Petroff."
"It's bully, it's superb," praised the tailor. "But it lacks the tender touch. It lacks that style which the city women like."
"I put in the punch, but you can add a love poem from some school-book if you like," protested the inn-keeper. "The city girls are funny creatures. Sometimes they like the finger, other times the fist. Who knows the taste of your Liza! The waitresses of big cities are usually broad-minded and highly educated."
After the poem was added and another rose glued on the corner of the letter, it was mailed, registered, with a note "highly urgent," and Petka breathed freely, like one who had survived a great ordeal.
Two months of heavy waiting passed and still no reply from Liza. Petka was like one on thorns. His strange romance was already known to his neighbors and now everybody was expecting the letter from America to furnish the most sensational news in all the world.
One afternoon as the tailor was sewing a pair of trousers the alderman of the village brought him a registered letter from America. Nearly half the village population had gathered outside, curious to hear the content of the letter. Petka took tremblingly and greatly excited the letter and rushed to Platon, the inn-keeper, all the time followed by the crowd. All the audience gathered in the inn and Platon was instructed to read it aloud to the gathering. As it was a ceremonial event of rare occasion, the inn-keeper stood up, and began in a solemn voice:
"My dear Petka: I am most happy to reply to your valued letter of the fifteenth of July, that I am glad to accept your proposal. But everything must be all right. I can marry only a man of the merchant class. I know the business and I can supply you with the capital you need. But you must remember that I do not like to be fooled and marry a man beneath me. No peasant or tailor for me. I stand here very high and cannot ruin my name. You have not told me your age, but I suppose you are not an old fogey. I will follow this letter next month, so you fix the wedding ceremony, secure all the musicians and manage the meals, drinks and such necessities. If this is not agreeable cable me. Your Liza."
While Platon was reading the letter Petka gazed dreamily out of the window and built, not an air castle, but a large grocery store, with showy windows. It seemed as if he saw his store already opened, the people going and coming, the shelves filled with cans and packages. The sign "Merchant Petka" hung in his eyes.
The letter was like a bomb in the idyllic village. Plans were made of the wedding date and elaborate ceremony. The village Luga had never witnessed yet a marriage ceremony of this magnitude. The American bride was like a fairy princess of some ancient times. Petka was like one in a trance. But Vasska, the blacksmith, opposed to the idea of such a strange marriage, pounded his hand against the bar, exclaiming: