I remember a fine Sunday morning. Through the windows of the Count's
church the diaphanous blue sky could be seen and the whole of the
church, from its painted cupola to its floor, was flooded by soft
sunrays in which little clouds of incense played about gaily. . . .
The songs of swallows and starlings were borne in through the open
doors and windows. . . . One sparrow, evidently a very bold little
fellow, flew in at the door, and having circled, chirping, several
times round and round above our heads, flew out again through one of
the windows. . . . In the church itself there was also singing. . . .
They sang sweetly, with feeling, and with the enthusiasm for which our
Little Russian singers are so celebrated when they feel themselves the
heroes of the moment, and that all eyes are bent upon them. . . . The
melodies were all gay and playful, like the soft, bright sunspots that
played upon the walls and the clothes of the congregation. . . . In
the unschooled but soft and fresh notes of the tenor my ear seemed to
catch, despite the gay wedding melodies, deep, melancholy, chest
chords. It appeared as if this tenor was sorry to see that next to
young, pretty and poetical Olenka there stood Urbenin, heavy,
bear-like, and getting on in years. . . . And it was not only the
tenor who was sorry to see this ill-assorted pair. . . . On many of
the faces that lay within the field of my vision, notwithstanding all
their efforts to appear gay and unconcerned, even an idiot could have
read an expression of compassion.
Arrayed in a new dress suit, I stood behind Olenka, holding the crown
over her head. I was pale and felt unwell. . . . I had a racking
headache, the result of the previous night's carouse and a pleasure
party on the lake and the whole time I was looking to see if the hand
that held the crown did not tremble. . . . My soul felt the
disagreeable presentiment of dread that is felt in a forest on a rainy
autumn night. I was vexed, disgusted, sorry. . . . Cats seemed to be
scratching at my heart, somewhat resembling qualms of
conscience. . . . There in the depths, at the very bottom of my heart,
a little devil was seated who obstinately, persistently whispered to
me that if Olenka's marriage with clumsy Urbenin was a sin, I was the
cause of that sin. . . . Where did such thoughts come from? How could
I have saved this little fool from the unknown risks of her
indubitable mistake? . . .
“Who knows?” whispered the little devil. “Who should know better than
you?”
In my time I have known many ill-assorted marriages. I have often
stood before Pukirev's picture. I have read numberless novels based on
disagreements between husband and wife; besides, I have known the
physiology that irrevocably punishes ill-assorted marriages, but never
once in my whole life had I experienced that terrible spiritual
condition from which I was unable to escape all the time I was
standing behind Olenka, executing the functions of best man.
“If my soul is agitated only by commiseration, how is it that I never
felt that compassion before when I assisted at other weddings? . . .”
“There is no commiseration here,” the little devil whispered, “but
jealousy. . . .”
One can only be jealous of those one loves, but do I love the girl in
red? If I loved all the girls I have met while living under the moon,
my heart would not suffice; besides, it would be too much of a good
thing. . . .
My friend Count Karnéev was standing quite at the back near the door
behind the churchwarden's counter, selling wax tapers. He was well
groomed, with well smoothed hair, and exhaled a narcotic, suffocating
odour of scents. That day he looked such a darling that when I greeted
him in the morning I could not refrain from saying:
“Alexey, to-day you are looking like an ideal quadrille dancer!”
He greeted everybody who entered or left with the sweetest of smiles,
and I heard the ponderous compliments with which he rewarded each lady
who bought a candle from him. He, the spoilt child of Fortune, who
never had copper coins, did not know how to handle them, and was
constantly dropping on the floor five and three-kopeck pieces. Near
him, leaning against the counter, Kalinin stood majestically with a
Stanislav decoration on a ribbon round his neck. His countenance shone
and beamed. He was pleased that his idea of “at homes” had fallen on
good soil, and was already beginning to bear fruit. In the depths of
his soul he was showering on Urbenin a thousand thanks; his marriage
was an absurdity, but it was a good opportunity to get the first “at
home” arranged.
Vain Olenka must have rejoiced. . . . From the nuptial lectern to the
doors of the high altar stretched out two rows of the most
representative ladies of our district flower garden. The guests were
decked out as smartly as they would have been if the Count himself was
being married: more elegant toilets could not have been desired. . . .
The assembly consisted almost exclusively of aristocrats . . . Not a
single priest's wife, not a single tradesman's wife. . . . There were
even among them ladies to whom Olenka would formerly never have
considered herself entitled to bow. . . . And Olenka's bridegroom—a
bailiff, a privileged retainer; but from this her vanity could not
suffer. He was a nobleman and the possessor of a mortgaged estate in
the neighbouring district. . . . His father had been marshal of the
district and he himself had for more than nine years been a magistrate
in his own native district. . . . What more could have been desired by
the ambitious daughter of a personal nobleman? Even the fact that her
best man was known in the whole province as a _bon vivant_ and a Don
Juan could tickle her pride. . . . All the women were looking at
him. . . . He was as showy as forty thousand best men thrown into one,
and what was not the least important, he had not refused to be her
best man, she, a simple little girl, when, as everybody knew, he had
even refused aristocrats when they had asked him to be their best
man. . . .
But vain Olenka did not rejoice. . . . She was as pale as the linen
she had but lately brought home from the Tenevo market. The hand in
which she held the candle shook slightly and her chin trembled from
time to time. In her eyes there was a certain dullness, as if
something had suddenly astonished or frightened her. . . . There was
not a sign of that gaiety which had shone in her eyes even the day
before when she was running about the garden talking with enthusiasm
of the sort of wallpaper she would have in her drawing-room, and
saying on what days she would receive guests, and so on. Her face was
now too serious, more serious than the solemn occasion demanded. . . .
Urbenin was in a new dress-suit. He was respectably dressed, but his
hair was arranged as the orthodox Russians wore their hair in the year
'twelve. As usual, he was red in the face, and serious. His eyes
prayed and the signs of the cross he made after every “Lord have mercy
upon us” were not made in a mechanical manner.
Urbenin's children by his first marriage—the schoolboy Grisha and the
little fair-haired girl Sasha,—were standing just behind me. They
gazed at the back of their father's red head and at his standing-out
ears, and their faces seemed to represent notes of interrogation. They
could not understand why Aunt Olia had given herself to their father,
and why he was taking her into his house. Sasha was only surprised,
but the fourteen-year-old Grisha frowned and looked scowlingly at him.
He would certainly have replied in the negative if his father had
asked his permission to marry. . . .
The marriage service was performed with special solemnity. Three
priests and two deacons officiated. The service lasted long, so long,
indeed, that my arm was quite tired of holding the crown, and the
ladies who love to see a wedding ceased looking at the bridal pair.
The chief priest read the prayers, with pauses, without leaving out a
single one. The choir sang something very long and complicated; the
cantor took advantage of the occasion to display the compass of his
voice, reading the Gospels with extra slowness. But at last the chief
priest took the crown out of my hands . . . the young couple kissed
each other. . . . The guests got excited, the straight lines were
broken, congratulations, kisses and exclamations were heard. Urbenin,
beaming and smiling, took his young wife on his arm, and we all went
out into the air.
If anybody who was in the church with me finds this description
incomplete and not quite accurate, let him set down these oversights
to the headache from which I was suffering and the above-mentioned
spiritual depression which prevented me from observing and
noting. . . . Certainly, if I had known at the time that I would have
to write a novel, I would not have looked at the floor as I did on
that day, and I would not have paid attention to my headache!
Fate sometimes allows itself bitter and malignant jokes! The young
couple had scarcely had time to leave the church when they were met by
an unexpected and unwished for surprise. When the wedding procession,
bright with many tints and colours in the sunlight, was proceeding
from the church to the Count's house, Olenka suddenly made a backward
step, stopped, and gave her husband's elbow such a violent pull that
he staggered.
“He's been let out!” she said aloud, looking at me with terror.
Poor little thing! Her insane father, the forester Skvortsov, was
running down the avenue to meet the procession. Waving his hands and
stumbling along with rolling, insane eyes, he presented a most
unattractive picture. However, all this would possibly have been
decent if he had not been in his print dressing-gown and downtrodden
slippers, the raggedness of which was of ill accord with the elegant
wedding finery of his daughter. His face looked sleepy, his
dishevelled hair was blown about by the wind, his nightshirt was
unbuttoned.
“Olenka!” he mumbled when he had come up to them. “Why have you left
me?”
Olenka blushed scarlet and looked askance at the smiling ladies. The
poor little thing was consumed by shame.
“Mit'ka did not lock the door!” the forester continued, turning to us.
“It would not be difficult for robbers to get in! . . . The samovar
was stolen out of the kitchen last summer, and now she wants us to be
robbed again.”
“I don't know who can have let him out!” Urbenin whispered to me. “I
ordered him to be locked up. . . . Golubchik, Sergei Petrovich, have
pity on us; get us out of this awkward position somehow! Anyhow!”
“I know who stole your samovar,” I said to the forester. “Come along,
I'll show you where it is.”
Taking Skvortsov round the waist, I led him towards the church. I took
him into the churchyard and talked to him until, by my calculation, I
thought the wedding procession ought to be in the house, then I left
him without having told him where his stolen samovar was to be found.
Although this meeting with the madman was quite unexpected and
extraordinary, it was soon forgotten. . . . A new surprise that Fate
had prepared for the young couple was still more unusual.