After the inspection, the wedding day was fixed. Later on, when he was home, Anisim kept pacing up and down whistling; or something would suddenly spring to mind which made him think hard, look at the floor without moving an inch and stare so hard that it seemed he was trying to bore a hole deep into the earth with his eyes. He didn’t show any pleasure at the fact that he was getting married, that it was going to be soon – the week after Easter – nor did he show any inclination to see his bride – all he did was whistle. Obviously he was marrying only because his father and stepmother wanted him to and because that was how things were done in the village: sons got married to have someone to help them in the house. He didn’t hurry himself when the time came to leave and his behaviour during this last visit was quite different from the previous one – he was particularly free-and-easy with everyone and kept speaking out of turn.
III
Two dressmakers lived in the village of Shikalovo; they were sisters and belonged to the Flagellant sect. They got the order for the wedding dresses and came over very often for the fittings, when they would sit down for hours drinking tea. For Varvara they made a brown dress, with black lace and tubular glass beads, and Aksinya had a bright green dress, yellow in front and with a train. When they had finished, Tsybukin didn’t pay them cash but in things from the shop, and so they went away very down in the mouth, carrying little packets of tallow candles and tins of sardines for which they didn’t have any use at all. As soon as they were out of the village and in the fields, they sat down on a little mound and burst into tears.
Anisim turned up just three days before the wedding in a completely new outfit. He wore brilliantly glossy rubber galoshes and instead of a tie had a red lace with tassels hanging from it. A brand-new overcoat was draped over his shoulders like a cloak. After solemnly saying his prayers, he greeted his father and gave him ten silver roubles and ten fifty-copeck pieces; he gave Varvara the same, while Aksinya received twenty twenty-five-copeck pieces. The principal charm of these presents was that every single coin was brand-new, as though specially selected, and all of them glinted in the sun. In his effort to appear sober and serious, Anisim tensed his face muscles and puffed his cheeks out; he was reeking of drink.
Most likely he had dashed into every station bar during the journey. Once again there was that same free-and-easy attitude, something strangely exaggerated about his behaviour. After his arrival, Anisim drank tea and ate savouries with his father, while Varvara fingered the bright new roubles and asked him about her friends from the village, now living in the town.
‘Everything’s okay, thank God, they’re all living well,’ Anisim said. ‘But there was a certain occurrence in Ivan Yegorov’s domestic life: his old woman Sofya passed away. From consumption. The caterers charged them two and a half roubles a head for the funeral repast for the repose of her soul. There was wine too. Some peasants from our village were there – and they had to pay two and a half roubles for each of them! But they didn’t eat a thing. You can’t expect yokels to know anything about sauces!’
‘Two and a half roubles!’ exclaimed the old man, shaking his head.
‘Well, what do you expect? It’s not like the village. If you drop into a restaurant for a bite, you order this and that, friends come and join you, you have a few drinks and before you know what’s happening it’s dawn and you’ve run up a nice little bill of three or four roubles a head. And if Samorodov comes, he likes his coffee and brandy after a meal – and with brandy at sixty copecks a glass! I ask you!’
‘He’s all lies,’ the old man said delightedly. ‘Nothing but lies!’
‘These days I’m always with him. He’s the same Samorodov who does my letters for me. Writes excellently!’
Anisim turned to Varvara and continued cheerfully, ‘If I told you, Mama, what kind of man he is, you’d never believe me. We all call him Mukhtar, as he rather looks like an Armenian – black all over. I can read him like a book, know everything he’s up to, like the back of my hand, Mama. He knows it all right and he’s behind me the whole time, doesn’t leave me alone for one minute. Now we’re as thick as thieves. Seems he’s scared of me, but he can’t do without me. Follows me everywhere. Now, I’ve very good eyesight, Mama. Just take the old clothes’ market. If there’s a peasant selling a shirt I say, “Hold on, that’s been stolen.” And as usual I’m always right. It was stolen!’
‘But how do you know?’ Varvara asked.
‘I don’t know, I’ve just got the eye for it. I didn’t know anything about the shirt, but somehow I was drawn to it – it was stolen, and that was that. The detectives where I work just say the words, “Look, Anisim’s gone shooting woodcock!” That means, “He’s gone looking for stolen property.” Yes… anyone can steal, but holding on to it’s another matter! It’s a great big world, but there’s no hiding stolen goods!’
‘But last week, in the village, the Guntorevs had a ram and two ewes stolen,’ Varvara said, sighing. ‘Only there was no one to go looking for them, oh, dear, dear me!’
‘What? Of course you can go looking. It’s really very easy.’
The wedding day arrived. Although the weather was cool, it was one of those bright and cheerful days in April. Since early morning, troikas and carriages and pairs had been driving round Ukleyevo with bells tinkling and their shaft-bows and horses’ manes decorated with gaily coloured ribbons. Disturbed by all this commotion, rooks cawed in the willows and starlings sang incessantly, as hard as they could, so that it seemed they were overjoyed at the Tsybukins’ wedding.
Back at the house, the tables were already laden with long fishes, stuffed legs of meat and gamebirds, boxes of sprats, different kinds of salted savouries and pickles, and a great quantity of vodka and wine bottles. One could smell the salami and soured lobster. The old man went hopping round the tables clicking his heels and sharpening the knives on each other. Time and again they called out to Varvara to bring them something. Looking quite bewildered and gasping for breath, she would run into the kitchen where the Kostyukovs’ chef and the Khrymins Junior head cook had been slaving away since dawn. Aksinya, with her hair set in curls, wearing just a corset without any dress over it and squeaky new ankle-high boots, dashed round the yard like a whirlwind and all one could catch sight of were bare knees and breasts. It was all very noisy, with swearing and cursing. Passers-by stopped at the wide-open gates and everything indicated that they were preparing for something really special.
‘They’ve gone for the bride!’
Harness bells rang out loud and then died away, far beyond the village… After two o’clock the villagers came running: they could hear the bells again, the bride was coming! The church was full, chandeliers shone brightly, and the choirboys sang from music-sheets, as the old man Tsybukin had specially requested this. The glare of the candles and the bright dresses dazzled Lipa, and the choirboys’ loud voices seemed to beat on her head like hammers; her corset (it was the first time she had ever worn one) and her shoes were pinching her to death; from her expression it seemed she had fainted and was just coming to – she looked around without understanding anything.
Anisim stood there in that same black frock-coat, with a red lace instead of a tie; he was in a very thoughtful mood, kept staring at the same spot and crossed himself hastily whenever the choirboys sang very loud. He felt deeply moved and wanted to cry. He was familiar with this church from early childhood; his late mother had brought him there once to take the sacrament and once he had sung in the choir with the other boys. So he remembered every nook and cranny, every icon. Now he was being married, because that was the right thing to do; but he wasn’t thinking about that at all and he seemed to have forgotten it completely. He could not see the icons for tears and his heart was heavy. He prayed and implored God to make those unavoidable misfortunes that were threatening to shower down on him any day now pass him by somehow, just as storm clouds pass over a village during a drought, without shedding a single drop of rain. So many sins from his pa
st accumulated – so many, in fact, that it was impossible to shrug them off or expiate them now – that even to ask for pardon was ridiculous. But he did ask to be forgiven and even sobbed out loud; but everyone ignored him, thinking that he was drunk.
Then a frightened child started crying, ‘Please, darling Mama, take me away from here!’
‘Be quiet over there!’ shouted the priest.
On the way back from the church, villagers flocked after the couple. Outside the shop, at the gates and beneath the windows overlooking the yard, there were crowds too. The village women had come to sing in their honour. Hardly had the young couple crossed the threshold than the choirboys (already stationed in the hall with their music-sheets) sang as hard as they could, at the top of their shrill voices. Then the band, specially hired from the town, struck up. Sparkling Don wine was already being served in long glasses and Yelizarov, the jobbing carpenter – a tall lean man whose eyebrows were so bushy they nearly covered his eyes – turned to the young couple and said, ‘Anisim – and you, my child – love one another, live like good Christians and the Holy Virgin will not forsake you.’
He fell on the old man’s shoulder and sobbed. ‘Grigory Petrov, let us weep, let us weep for joy!’ he said in his thin little voice and then he suddenly laughed out loud and continued – this time lowering his voice, ‘Oho! Your daughter-in-law’s a real smasher. She’s got everything in the right place, she’s running nice and smooth, no rattling – all the machinery is in tip-top order – and there’s plenty of screws.’
He came from around Yegoryevsk,3 but he had worked in the Ukleyevo factories and local workshops since he was a young boy, and that’s where his roots were. For as long as the people had known him, he had always been that same thin, tall old man – and he had always gone by the name of ‘Crutchy’. Perhaps as a result of spending over forty years doing nothing else but repairs in factories, he judged everybody and everything solely in terms of soundness: did it need repairing? And even before he sat down at the table, he tested a few chairs to see if they were all right – and he also gave the salmon a poke.
After the sparkling wine, everyone sat down at the table. The wedding-guests talked and moved their chairs. The choirboys sang in the hall, the band played, and at the same time the village women sang out in the yard, their voices all at the same pitch, which produced such a horrible, wild jumble of sounds it made one’s head reel. Crutchy fidgeted on his chair, elbowed the people sitting next to him, didn’t let them get a word in, and cried and laughed out loud in turn. ‘My children! My little children… little children!’ he muttered swiftly. ‘My dearest Aksinya, my sweet little Varvara, let’s all live peacefully together… my darlings…’
He never drank very much and now one glass of strong vodka made him tipsy. This revolting brew, concocted from God knows what, made all who drank it so muzzy they felt they had been clubbed. Tongues began to falter.
The clergy was there, factory clerks and their wives, and innkeepers from other villages. The chairman of the parish council and his clerk, who had been working together for as long as fourteen years now – during the whole course of which they had never signed a single document – and who never let anyone leave the office without first cheating and insulting him, had positioned their fat, well-fed selves next to each other. They had lived on lies for so long, it seemed that even the skin on their faces had taken on a peculiarly criminal complexion all of its own. The clerk’s wife, a scraggy woman with a squint, had brought all her children along; just like a bird of prey she looked at the plates out of the corner of her eye and grabbed everything within reach, stuffing it away in her children’s pockets and her own.
Lipa sat there like a stone and she looked the same as she did during the service. Not having exchanged a single word with her since their first meeting, Anisim still didn’t know what her voice was like.
And now, even though he was sitting right next to her, he still didn’t break the silence and drank vodka instead. But when he was drunk, however, he began to speak to his aunt, who was sitting on the other side of the table: ‘I’ve a friend called Samorodov, he’s a bit out of the ordinary, respected everywhere and a good talker too. But I can see right through him, Auntie, and he knows it. Will you please join me in toasting Samorodov’s health, Auntie dear!’
Varvara went round the table serving the guests; she was worn out, confused, and clearly pleased that there were so many different dishes and that everything had been done so lavishly – no one could criticize her now. The sun had set, but still the dinner went on. Now they no longer knew what they were eating or drinking and it was impossible to catch a word they said. Only now and then, when the band stopped playing for a moment, could one hear – quite distinctly – a peasant woman outside shouting, ‘You’ve sucked us dry, you rotten bastards. You can all go to hell!’
In the evening there was dancing with music. The Khrymins Junior arrived with their own drink and during the quadrille one of them held a bottle in each hand and a glass in his mouth, which everyone found highly amusing. Halfway through the quadrille they suddenly started dancing Cossack style. Aksinya flashed round the room, a green blur, and her train set up little gusts of wind. Somebody trod on one of her frills down below and Crutchy shouted, ‘Hey, you’ve torn her skirting-board off! Oh, children!’
Aksinya had grey, naïve-looking eyes that seldom blinked and a naïve smile constantly played over her face. There was something snake-like in those unblinking eyes, in that small head and long neck, in that shapely figure. As she surveyed the guests in her green dress with its yellow front, she resembled a viper peering up out of the young spring rye at someone walking past – its body erect and head raised high. The Khrymins took liberties with her and it was glaringly obvious that she had been having an affair with the eldest for a long time now. But the deaf husband didn’t notice a thing and he didn’t even look at her. He merely sat there with his legs crossed, eating nuts, making such a racket as he cracked them with his teeth that it sounded like pistol shots.
And now old Tsybukin himself strode into the middle of the room and waved his handkerchief – a signal that he wanted to join in the Cossack dancing. A rumble of approval ran through the whole house – and through the crowd outside in the yard as well: ‘It’s the old boy himself. He’s going to dance!’
In fact, only Varvara did the dancing, while the old man simply fluttered his handkerchief and shuffled his heels. In spite of this, the people out in the yard hung onto one another’s back to get a good view through the windows, and they were absolutely delighted: for one brief moment they forgave him everything – his wealth and the insults they had suffered.
‘That’s me boy, Grigory Petrov!’ someone shouted. ‘Come on, have a go! You can still do it! Ha, ha!’
The celebrations finished late – after one o’clock in the morning. Anisim staggered over to the choirboys and the band and tipped all of them a new half-rouble piece. The old man, without tottering, but still hopping on one foot, saw the guests off and told everybody, ‘That wedding cost two thousand.’
As they were leaving, the publican from Shikalovo discovered that his fine new coat had been exchanged for an old one. Anisim suddenly flared up and yelled, ‘Hold on! I’ll find it right away! I know who took it! Just wait a moment!’
He ran out into the street and chased after someone; they caught him, hauled him back to the house by the arms – he was drunk, red with anger and soaking wet – bundled him into the room where Auntie had been helping Lipa to undress and locked him in.
IV
Five days passed. When Anisim was ready to leave, he went upstairs to say goodbye to Varvara. All the icon-lamps in her room were burning and there was a strong smell of incense. She was sitting by the window knitting a red woollen sock.
‘You didn’t stay very long,’ she said. ‘Got bored, did you? Dear, dear me… We live well here, we’ve got plenty of everything, and we did the right thing by you and gave you a proper wedding. Th
e old man said it cost two thousand. So I’ll come straight to the point. We live in the lap of luxury here, only I find it all a bit boring. And how badly we treat the peasants! It plain makes my heart ache, dear, to think how we treat them. My God! Whether it’s horse-dealing, buying, taking on a new workman – we do nothing but cheat… cheat… cheat. That butter we sell in the shop has turned rancid and rotten – some people’s tar is better! Tell me, why can’t we sell decent stuff, eh?’
‘It’s none of my business, Mama.’
‘But we’re all going to die one day, aren’t we? You really should have a good talk with your father!…’
‘No, you should talk to him.’
‘Now, enough of that… I’ll say my piece and then he’ll tell me – just like you, without beating about the bush – that it’s none of my business. They’ll show you in heaven, they will, whose business it is! God is just.’
‘Well of course, there’s no chance of that,’ Anisim said, sighing. ‘There is no God anyway, Mama. So who’s going to tell me what I should do?’
Varvara looked at him in amazement, burst out laughing and clasped her hands together. Her sincere astonishment at what he had just said, together with the way she was looking at him as though he were some kind of crank, deeply embarrassed him.
‘Perhaps there is a God, but I don’t believe in him,’ he said. ‘All through the wedding service I didn’t feel myself at all. Imagine you just took an egg from underneath a hen while the chick’s still cheeping inside it… Well, my conscience suddenly started cheeping and while we were being married I kept thinking that God does exist! But as soon as I was outside the church it had all gone from my mind! Anyway, how do you expect me to know if there’s a God or not? We weren’t taught about him, right from the time we were very young, and a young baby can still be sucking his mother’s breasts and all they teach him is mind your own business. Papa doesn’t believe in God either, does he? You said once that the Guntorevs had some sheep stolen… I found out it was that peasant from Shikalovo. He stole them, but it’s Papa who’s got the skins! There’s religion for you!’ Anisim winked and shook his head.
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 Page 32