After he had dined he smoked and looked out of the window. It had
grown dark. He knew that in the servants’ wing they were already
baking the twisted buns of rye flour--the “ceremonial patties.” They
were making ready to boil two kettles of fish in jelly, a kettle of
vermicelli-paste, a kettle of sour cabbage soup, a kettle of buckwheat
groats--all fresh from the slaughter-house. And Syery was making
himself very busy on a hillock of snow between the storehouses and the
shed. On the snow-mound, in the bluish shades of twilight, there blazed
with an orange-coloured flame the straw with which they had surrounded
the slaughtered pig. Around the fire, awaiting their prey, sat the
sheep dogs. Their muzzles shone white; their breasts were of a silky
rose hue. Syery, stamping through the snow, ran hither and thither,
mending the fire, swinging his arms at the dogs. He had tucked up high
the tails of his coat, thrusting them into his belt, and kept pushing
his cap to the back of his head with the wrists of his right hand,
in which glittered a knife. Fleetingly and brilliantly illuminated,
now from this side, now from that, Syery cast a huge, dancing shadow
on the snow--the shadow of a pagan. Then, past the storehouse along
the footpath leading to the village, ran Odnodvorka, and disappeared
beneath the snow-mound--to summon the women for the ceremonial rites
and to ask Domashka for the fir-tree, carefully preserved in her
cellar and passed on from one bride’s party to another on the eve of
the wedding. And when Kuzma, after brushing his hair and changing his
round jacket with the ragged elbows for the conventional long-tailed
frock coat, had donned his overcoat and emerged upon the porch, all
white with the falling snow in the soft grey gloom, a large crowd of
children, little girls and boys, were still outlined blackly against
the lighted windows; they were screaming and talking, and three
accordions were being played simultaneously, and all playing different
tunes. Kuzma, his shoulders hunched, picking at his fingers and
cracking them, stepped up to the crowd, pushed his way through it, and,
bending low, disappeared into the darkness of the ante-room. It was
full of people, crowded even, in that entry-way. Small urchins darted
about between people’s legs, were seized by the scruff of the neck and
thrust outside--whereupon they promptly crawled back again.
“Come now, let me in, for God’s sake!” said Kuzma, who was squeezed
tightly in the doorway.
They squeezed him all the harder--and some one jerked open the door.
Surrounded by jets of vapour, he crossed the threshold and came
to a halt at the jamb. At that point the better-class people were
congregated--maidens in flowered shawls, children in complete new
outfits. There was an odour of woven goods, fur coats, kerosene, cheap
tobacco, and evergreens. A small green tree, decorated with scraps
of red cotton cloth, stood on the table, its branches outstretched
above the dim tin lamp. Around the table beneath the moist little
windows, which had thawed out, along the damp blackened walls, sat the
ceremonial women, festively adorned, their faces coarsely painted red
and white. Their eyes flashed. All wore silk and woolen kerchiefs on
their heads, with drooping rainbow-tinted feathers from the tail of
a drake stuck into their hair at the temples. Just as Kuzma entered,
Domashka, a lame girl with a dark, malicious, and intelligent face,
sharp black eyes, and black eyebrows which met over her nose, had
struck up in a rough, hoarse voice the ancient “exaltation” song:
“At our house in the evening, fully evening,
At the very last end of the evening,
At Avdotya’s betrothal feast....”
In a dense, discordant chorus the maidens repeated her last words.
And all turned toward the Bride. She was sitting, in accordance with
custom, by the stove, her hair flowing loose, her head covered with
a large dark shawl; and she was bound to answer the song with loud
weeping and wailing: “My own dear father, my own mother dear, how am
I to live forevermore thus grieving with woe in marriage?” But the
Bride uttered never a word. And the maidens, having finished their
song, involuntarily regarded her askance. They began to whisper among
themselves, and, frowning, they slowly, in a drawling tone, struck up
the “orphan’s song”:
“Heat yourself hot, you little bath,
Ring out, you sonorous bell!”
And Kuzma’s tightly clenched jaws began to quiver; a chill darted
through his head and his legs; his cheek-bones ached agreeably, and his
eyes were filled and dimmed with tears.
“Stop that, you girls!” some one shouted.
“Stop it, my dear, stop it!” cried Odnodvorka, slipping down from the
bench. “’Tis unseemly.”
But the girls did not obey:
“Ring out, you sonorous bell,
Awaken my father dear....”
And the Bride began, with a groan, to fall face down on her knees, on
her arms, and choked with tears. She was led away at last, trembling,
staggering, and shrieking, to the cold summer half of the cottage, to
be dressed.
After that was done, Kuzma bestowed the blessing on her. The bridegroom
arrived with Vaska, Yakoff’s son. The bridegroom had donned the
latter’s boots; his hair had been freshly clipped short; his neck,
encircled by the collar of a blue shirt with lace, had been shaved to
redness. He had washed himself with soap, and appeared much younger; he
was even not at all ill looking, and, conscious of that fact, he had
drooped his dark eyelashes in dignified and modest fashion.
Vaska, his best man, in red shirt and knee-length fur coat worn
unbuttoned, with his hair close-cut, pock-marked, robust, resembled a
convict, as usual. He entered, frowned, and darted a sidelong look at
the ceremonial girls.
“Stop that yowling!” he said roughly and peremptorily. “Get out of
here. Begone!”
The girls answered him in chorus: “Without the Trinity a house cannot
be built, without four corners the cottage cannot be roofed. Place a
ruble at each corner, a fifth ruble in the middle, and a bottle of
vodka.” Vaska pulled a bottle out of his pocket and set it on the
table. The girls took it and rose to their feet. The crowd had become
more dense than ever. Once more the door flew open, once more there
were steam and cold. Odnodvorka entered, carrying a tinsel-adorned
holy picture and thrusting the people out of her way, followed by the
Bride in a blue dress with a basque. Every one uttered an exclamation
of admiration, she was so pale, gentle, quiet, and lovely. Vaska, with
the back of his fist, administered a resounding blow on the forehead
of a broad-shouldered, big-headed urchin whose legs were as crooked
as those of a dachshund; then he flung upon the straw in the centre
of the cottage some one’s old short fur coat. Upon it the bride and
groom were placed. Kuzma, without lifting his head, took the holy
picture from the hands of Odnodvorka. It became so quiet that the
whistling breath of the inquisitive big-headed lad was audible. Bride
and bridegroom fell on their knees simultaneously and bowed down to
Kuzma’s feet. They rose, and once more knelt down. Kuzma glanced at the
Bride; and in their eyes, which met for an instant, there was a flash
of horror. Kuzma turned pale, said to himself in terror: “In another
minute I shall throw this holy picture on the floor.” But his hands
mechanically made the sign of the cross with the ikona in the air; and
the Bride, barely touching her lips to it, fastened them on his hand
and timidly reached up to his lips. He thrust the holy picture into the
hands of some one beside him, grasped the Bride’s head with paternal
pain and tenderness, and, as he kissed her new, fragrant headkerchief,
burst into sweet tears. Then, seeing nothing because of his tears, he
turned away and, thrusting the people out of his path, strode into the
vestibule. It was already deserted. The snow-laden wind beat in his
face. The snow-covered threshold shone white through the darkness. The
roof was humming. Beyond the threshold an impenetrable blizzard was
raging; and the snow, falling out of the tiny window recesses from the
sheer weight of the drifts, hung like columns of smoke in the air.