“Is this gentleman married?” I asked almost aloud of an acquaintance who stood nearest to Julian Mastakovich.
Julian Mastakovich threw at me a searching and malicious glance.
“No!” answered my acquaintance, mortified deeply at the awkwardness which I committed purposely....
Not long ago I was passing the—— Church, and I was astonished at the tremendous crowd that had gathered there. Every one talked about a wedding. It was a bleak day in late autumn. I made my way through the crowd and caught a glimpse of the bridegroom. He was a round, satiated, pot-bellied little person, very much adorned. He ran hither and thither, fussed, and gave orders. At last a murmur went through the crowd, announcing the arrival of the bride. I squeezed through the crowd and saw an astoundingly beautiful girl, who had hardly experienced the first bloom of spring. But the beautiful girl was pale and sad. She looked bewildered; and it seemed to me that her eyes were red from newly-shed tears. The classic rigidity of her features imparted to her beauty a kind of dignity and strength. But through all this rigidity and dignity, through all this sadness, there penetrated the first aspect of childhood’s innocence; it suggested something naïve, fragile, and juvenile to the last degree; and though the look bespoke resignation, it also seemed to utter a silent prayer for mercy.
It was said in the crowd that she had just passed her sixteenth birthday. An intent scrutiny of the bridegroom suddenly revealed him to me as Julian Mastakovich, whom I had not seen for exactly five years. I looked at her.... My God! I quickly made haste to leave the church. In the crowd they were telling each other how rich the bride was, that she had a dowry of five hundred thousand rubles ... and so much besides in rags....
“At any rate, his calculation was a good one!” I reflected, as I jostled my way into the street.
KOROLENKO THE EXILE
No intelligent outlander, I suppose, but marvels at the patience with which the Russian people endure the exile system that has so long brewed hell-broth for the nation to drink. When some violent offense is answered by such punishment, we do not demur, but when trivialities are magnified, and the police stupidly blunder, our blood boils with protest.
So many times has Vladimir Korolenko been banished, that exile must seem to him almost a normal condition, and freedom from police surveillance a happy freak of fortune. And yet, more than any other distinguished Russian writer, he is free from pessimism—his writings are filled with passages of lyric sweetness.