When I left Tenevo I took the same road by which I had come. The sun
showed it was already midday. As in the morning, peasants' carts and
landowners' britzkas, beguiled my hearing by their squeaking and the
metallic rumble of their bells. Again, the gardener, Franz, drove past
me with his vodka barrel, but this time it was probably full. Again
his eyes gave me a sour look, and he touched his cap. His nasty face
jarred on me, but this time again the disagreeable impression that the
meeting with him had made on me was entirely wiped away by the
forester's daughter, Olenka, whose heavy wagonette caught me up.
“Give me a lift!” I called to her.
She nodded gaily to me and stopped her vehicle. I sat down beside her,
and the wagonette rattled on along the road, which like a light stripe
cut through the three versts of the Tenevo forest. For about two
minutes we looked at each other in silence.
“What a pretty girl she really is!” I thought as I looked at her
throat and chubby chin. “If I were told to choose between Nadenka and
her, I would choose her. . . . She's more natural, fresher, her nature
is broader, bolder. . . . If she fell into good hands, much could be
made of her! . . . The other is morose, visionary . . . clever.”
Lying at Olenka's feet there were two pieces of linen and several
parcels.
“What a number of purchases you have made!” I said. “For what can you
want so much linen?”
“That's not all I need!” Olenka replied. “I only bought these among
all the rest. To-day I was a whole hour buying things in the market;
to-morrow I must go to make purchases in the town. . . . And then all
this must be made up. . . . I say, don't you know any woman who would
go out to sew?”
“No, I think not. . . . But why have you to buy so many things? Why
have they to be sewn? God knows your family is not large. . . . One,
two . . . there, I've counted you all. . . .”
“How queer all you men are! You don't understand anything! Wait till
you get married, you yourself will be angry then if after the wedding
your wife comes to you all slovenly. I know Pëtr Egorych is not in
want of anything. Still, it seems a bit awkward not to appear as a
good housewife from the first. . . .”
“What has Pëtr Egorych to do with it?”
“Hm! . . . You are laughing at me, as if you don't know!” Olenka said
and blushed slightly.
“Young lady, you are talking in riddles.”
“Have you really not heard? Why, I am going to marry Pëtr Egorych!”
“Marry?” I said in astonishment, making big eyes. “What Pëtr Egorych?”
“Oh, good Lord! Urbenin, of course!”