Stories (49 page)

She was young, still a girl, with barely noticeable breasts, but she could already marry, since she was of age. She was indeed beautiful, and the only thing that could be found displeasing in her was her big, mannish hands, which now hung down idly like two big claws.

“There’s no dowry, but we don’t mind,” the old man said to the aunt, “we also took one from a poor family for our son Stepan, and now we can’t praise her enough. Around the house, or at work—a golden touch.”

Lipa stood by the door and it was as if she wanted to say: “Do what you like with me, I trust you,” but her mother Praskovya, the day laborer, hid in the kitchen, dying from timidity. Once, when she was still young, a merchant whose floors she used to scrub stamped his feet at her in anger, and she was so badly frightened, so mortified, that the fear remained in her soul for the rest of her life. And from fear her hands and feet always trembled, her cheeks trembled. Sitting in the kitchen, she tried to overhear what the guests were talking about and kept crossing herself, pressing her fingers to
her forehead and glancing at the icon. Anisim, slightly drunk, opened the kitchen door and said casually:

“What are you sitting in here for, precious mother? We miss you.”

And Praskovya, turning shy, pressing her hands to her skinny, emaciated breast, answered:

“Ah, mercy, sir … We’re much pleased with you, sir.”

After the showing, the day of the wedding was set. Then, at home, Anisim kept pacing the rooms, whistling, or, suddenly remembering something, would lapse into thought and stare at the floor, fixedly, piercingly, as if he wanted to penetrate deep into the ground with his gaze. He expressed neither pleasure at getting married, married soon, on Krasnaya Gorka,
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nor any desire to see his fiancée, but simply whistled. And it was obvious that he was getting married only because his father and stepmother wanted it and because it was a village custom: a son should marry so that there wou
ld be a helper in the house. Going away, he was in no hurry
and generally behaved differently than on his previous visits—was somehow especially casual and said things that were out of place.

In the village of Shikalovo lived two dressmakers, sisters, who belonged to the Flagellants.
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They were hired to make new dresses for the wedding, and they often came for fittings and lingered a long time over tea. Varvara had a brown dress made, with black lace and bugles, and Aksinya a light green dress with a yellow front and train. When the dressmakers were done, Tsybukin paid them not in cash but in goods from his shop, and they went away from him sadly, carrying bundles of stearine candles and sardines, which they did not need at all, and when they got out of the village into the fiel
ds, they sat down on a knoll and began to cry.

Anisim came three days before the wedding in all new clothes. He wore shiny rubber galoshes and a red string tipped with beads instead of a tie, and over his shoulders hung a coat, also new, his arms not in the sleeves.

After gravely saying a prayer, he greeted his father and gave him ten silver roubles and ten half roubles; he gave the same amount to Varvara, and to Aksinya twenty quarter roubles. The main charm of this present was precisely that all the coins, as if specially chosen, were new and glittered in the sun. Trying to look grave and serious, Anisim strained his face and puffed his cheeks, and he gave off a smell of drink—he had probably rushed out to the buffet at every station. And again there was some sort of casualness, something superfluous in the man. Later Anisim and the old man had tea and a b
ite to eat, while Varvara fingered the new roubles and asked about local people who were living in town.

“It’s all right, thank God, they have a good life,” said Anisim. “Only Ivan Yegorov had something happen in his family: his old woman, Sofya Nikiforovna, died. Of consumption. They ordered a memorial dinner for the repose of her soul at a confectioner’s, two roubles fifty a person. And there was grape wine. Peasants came— our locals—it was two-fifty for them, too. They didn’t eat anything. What does a peasant know about sauce!”

“Two-fifty!” said the old man and shook his head.

“And so what? It’s not a village. You stop at a restaurant to have a
bite to eat, you order this and that, a company gathers, you have a drink—lo and behold, it’s daybreak and three or four roubles each, if you please. And when it’s with Samorodov, he likes to top it all off with coffee and cognac, and cognac’s sixty kopecks a glass, sir.”

“And it’s all a pack of lies,” the old man said admiringly. “A pack of lies!”

“I’m always with Samorodov now. It’s that same Samorodov who writes my letters. He writes magnificently. And if I was to tell you, mother,” Anisim went on merrily, addressing Varvara, “what sort of man that same Samorodov is, you wouldn’t believe it. We all call him Mukhtar,
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because he’s got the looks of an Ar
menian—all dark. I can see through him, I know all his dealings like the palm of my hand, mother, and he feels it and keeps following me, never leaves me, and now we’re inseparable. He seems a little scared, but he can’t live without me. Wherever I go, he goes. I’ve got a true and trusty eye, mother. I see a peasant selling a shirt at the flea market. ‘Stop! That’s a stolen shirt!’ And it turns out to be so: the shirt’s stolen.”

“But how do you know?” asked Varvara.

“No idea, I’ve got that sort of eye. I don’t know anything about this shirt, only for some reason I’m just drawn to it: it’s stolen and that’s that. They say in the department: ‘Well, Anisim’s gone hunting woodcock!’ That means looking for stolen goods. Yes … Anybody can steal, but how to hold on to it! It’s a big world, but there’s nowhere to hide stolen goods.”

“And in our village the Guntorevs had a ram and two ewes stolen last week,” Varvara said and sighed. “And there’s nobody to go looking for them … Oh, tush, tush …”

“So what? It could be done. Nothing to it.”

The day of the wedding came. It was a cool but bright and cheerful April day. From early morning troikas and pairs, bells jingling, drove around Ukleyevo, their manes and yokes decorated with multicolored ribbons. The rooks, disturbed by this driving, squawked in the pussywillows, and the starlings sang incessantly, straining their voices, as if rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tsybukins’.

In the house the tables were already laid with long fish, hams, and stuffed fowl, tins of sprats, various salted and pickled things, and numerous bottles of vodka and wine, and there was a smell of smoked sausage and spoiled lobster. And around the table, tapping his heels and sharpening one knife against another, walked the old
man. Someone was calling Varvara all the t
ime, asking for something, and she, with a lost look, breathing hard, kept running to the kitchen, where a chef sent by Kostiukov and a kitchen maid from the Khrymin Juniors had been working since dawn. Aksinya, her hair curled, with no dress on, in a corset and creaking new boots, rushed about the yard like a whirlwind, and only her bare knees and breast kept flashing. It was noisy, oaths and curses were heard; passersby stopped at the flung-open gates, and it all felt as if something extraordinary was being prepared.

“They’ve gone for the bride!”

Harness bells rang out and faded away far beyond the village … Between two and three o’clock people came running: again the bells were heard, they were bringing the bride! The church was packed, the big chandelier was lit, the choir, at old Tsybukin’s wish, sang from books. The shining lights and bright dresses dazzled Lipa, it seemed to her that the loud voices of the choir were beating on her head with hammers; her corset, which she was wearing for the first time in her life, and her high shoes squeezed her, and she looked as if she had just come out of a swoon—her eyes wide and unc
omprehending. Anisim, in a black frock coat, with a red string instead of a tie, stared pensively at one spot, and each time the choir gave a loud cry, he quickly crossed himself. He was moved in his heart, he felt like weeping. This church had been familiar to him from childhood; his late mother had brought him there for communion; he had sung in the choir with the other boys; for him every little corner, every icon had its memories. Now he was getting married, he had to have a wife for propriety’s sake, but he no longer thought about that, he somehow did not remember, he completely forgot the weddin
g. Tears prevented him from seeing the icons, something pressed on his heart; he prayed and asked God that the inevitable misfortunes which were ready to break over him any day might somehow pass him by, as storm clouds in a time of drought pass by a village without giving a drop of rain. And so many sins had already been heaped up in the past, so many sins, and everything was so inextricable, irreparable, that it somehow even made no sense to ask forgivenes
s. Yet he did ask forgiveness, and even sobbed loudly, but nobody paid attention to it, thinking he was drunk.

An anxious child’s crying was heard:

“Mummy dear, take me home!”

“Quiet there,” shouted the priest.

As they returned from church, people ran after them; by the shop, by the gates, and under the windows in the yard there was also a crowd. Peasant women came to chant praises. The young couple had barely crossed the threshold when the choir, already standing in the front hall with their books, struck up loudly, with all their might; musicians, specially invited from town, began to play. Sparkling Don wine was brought in tall glasses, and the carpenter-contractor Yelizarov, a tall, lean old man with such thick eyebrows that his eyes were barely visible, said, addressing the young couple:

“Anisim, and you, little girl, love each other, lead a godly life, my little ones, and the Queen of Heaven will not abandon you.” He fell on the old man’s shoulder and sobbed. “Grigory Petrovich, let us weep, let us weep for joy!” he said in a high little voice and straightaway suddenly guffawed and went on loudly, in a bass voice: “Ho, ho, ho! And this daughter-in-law of yours is a fine one, too! She’s got everything in the right place, I’d say, all smooth, no rattling, the whole mechanism’s in order, plenty of screws.”

He was a native of the Yegoriev district, but from an early age he had been working in Ukleyevo at the factories and around the district and was at home there. He had long been known as the same tall and lean old man he was now, and had long been called Crutch. For over forty years he had done nothing but repair work at the factories, and that was perhaps the reason why he judged every person or object from the point of view of sturdiness alone: by whether or not it needed repair. And before sitting
down at the table he tried several chairs to see if they were sturdy, and also poked the white-fish.

After the sparkling wine they all began to sit down at the table. The guests talked, moved chairs. The choir sang in the front hall, the music played, and at the same time the peasant women were singing in the courtyard, all as one voice—and the result was some terrible, wild mixture of sounds, which made one’s head spin.

Crutch fidgeted in his chair and nudged his neighbors with his elbows, preventing them from talking, and now wept, now laughed.

“Little ones, little ones, little ones …” he muttered quickly. “Aksinyushka dear, Varvarushka, let’s all live in peace and harmony, my gentle little hatchets …”

He drank rarely, and now became drunk from one glass of English bitters. This disgusting bitters, made of God knows what, stupefied everyone who drank it, as if it hit them on the head. Tongues became confused.

The clergy were there, the factory managers and their wives, merchants and tavernkeepers from other villages. The local headman and the local clerk, who had been serving together for fourteen years and in all that time had never signed a single paper nor allowed a single person to leave their office without having cheated and insulted him, were now sitting side by side, both fat, well fed, and it seemed they were so saturated with falsehood that even the skin of their faces was of some special fraudulent sort. The clerk’s wife, an emaciated, cross-eyed woman, had brought all her children with her
, and, like a bird of prey, cast sidelong glances at the plates, snatched everything she could lay her hands on, and hid it in her own and her children’s pockets.

Lipa sat petrified, with the same look that she had in church. Since making her acquaintance, Anisim had not said a single wor
d to her, so that he did not know to that day what her voice was like; and now, sitting beside her, he still kept silent and drank English bitters, but when he got drunk he began to speak, addressing her aunt, who was sitting opposite him:

“I have a friend whose last name is Samorodov. He’s a special man. A personally honorable citizen and a capable speaker. But I can see through him, auntie, and he feels it. Allow me, auntie, to drink with you to Samorodov’s health!”

Varvara, tired and confused, walked around the table offering things to the guests, and was clearly pleased that there was so much food and all of it so high-class—now no one could find fault with them. The sun set and the dinner went on; they no longer knew what they were eating, what they were drinking, it was impossible to hear anything that was said, and only from time to time, when the music died down, could some peasant woman in the yard be heard shouting:

“You’ve sucked enough of our blood, you Herods, a plague upon you!”

In the evening there was dancing to the music. The Khrymin Juniors came with their wine, and one of them, during the quadrille, held a bottle in each hand and a glass in his mouth, and that made everyone laugh. In the middle of the quadrille, someone
would start a squatting dance; the green Aksinya only flitted about, and a breeze blew from her train. Someone stepped on her flounce, and Crutch shouted:

“Hey, the plinth got torn off below! Little ones!”

Aksinya had gray, naïve eyes that seldom blinked, and a naïve smile constantly played over her face. And there was something snakelike in those unblinking eyes, and in that small head on its long neck, and in her shapely build; green with a yellow front, smiling, she gazed the way a viper in springtime, stretc
hed out and head up, gazes from the young rye at someone going past. The Khrymins behaved freely with her, and it was quite obvious that she had a long-standing intimacy with the older one. And her deaf husband, who understood nothing, did not look at her; he sat with his legs crossed eating nuts, and cracked them so loudly that it was as if he were firing a pistol.