The elder son Anisim came home very rarely, only on great holidays, but
he often sent by a returning villager presents and letters written in
very good writing by some other hand, always on a sheet of foolscap in
the form of a petition. The letters were full of expressions that Anisim
never made use of in conversation: “Dear papa and mamma, I send you a
pound of flower tea for the satisfaction of your physical needs.”
At the bottom of every letter was scratched, as though with a broken
pen: “Anisim Tsybukin,” and again in the same excellent hand: “Agent.”
The letters were read aloud several times, and the old father, touched,
red with emotion, would say:
“Here he did not care to stay at home, he has gone in for an
intellectual line. Well, let him! Every man to his own job!”
It happened just before Carnival there was a heavy storm of rain mixed
with hail; the old man and Varvara went to the window to look at it,
and lo and behold! Anisim drove up in a sledge from the station. He was
quite unexpected. He came indoors, looking anxious and troubled about
something, and he remained the same all the time; there was something
free and easy in his manner. He was in no haste to go away, it seemed,
as though he had been dismissed from the service. Varvara was pleased at
his arrival; she looked at him with a sly expression, sighed, and shook
her head.
“How is this, my friends?” she said. “Tut, tut, the lad’s in his
twenty-eighth year, and he is still leading a gay bachelor life; tut,
tut, tut....”
From the other room her soft, even speech sounded like tut, tut, tut.
She began whispering with her husband and Aksinya, and their faces wore
the same sly and mysterious expression as though they were conspirators.
It was decided to marry Anisim.
“Oh, tut, tut... the younger brother has been married long ago,” said
Varvara, “and you are still without a helpmate like a cock at a fair.
What is the meaning of it? Tut, tut, you will be married, please God,
then as you choose--you will go into the service and your wife will
remain here at home to help us. There is no order in your life, young
man, and I see you have forgotten how to live properly. Tut, tut, it’s
the same trouble with all you townspeople.”
When the Tsybukins married, the most handsome girls were chosen as
brides for them as rich men. For Anisim, too, they found a handsome one.
He was himself of an uninteresting and inconspicuous appearance; of a
feeble, sickly build and short stature; he had full, puffy cheeks which
looked as though he were blowing them out; his eyes looked with a keen,
unblinking stare; his beard was red and scanty, and when he was thinking
he always put it into his mouth and bit it; moreover he often drank too
much, and that was noticeable from his face and his walk. But when he
was informed that they had found a very beautiful bride for him, he
said:
“Oh well, I am not a fright myself. All of us Tsybukins are handsome, I
may say.”
The village of Torguevo was near the town. Half of it had lately been
incorporated into the town, the other half remained a village. In the
first--the town half--there was a widow living in her own little house;
she had a sister living with her who was quite poor and went out to work
by the day, and this sister had a daughter called Lipa, a girl who went
out to work, too. People in Torguevo were already talking about Lipa’s
good looks, but her terrible poverty put everyone off; people opined
that some widower or elderly man would marry her regardless of her
poverty, or would perhaps take her to himself without marriage, and that
her mother would get enough to eat living with her. Varvara heard about
Lipa from the matchmakers, and she drove over to Torguevo.
Then a visit of inspection was arranged at the aunt’s, with lunch and
wine all in due order, and Lipa wore a new pink dress made on purpose
for this occasion, and a crimson ribbon like a flame gleamed in her
hair. She was pale-faced, thin, and frail, with soft, delicate features
sunburnt from working in the open air; a shy, mournful smile always
hovered about her face, and there was a childlike look in her eyes,
trustful and curious.
She was young, quite a little girl, her bosom still scarcely
perceptible, but she could be married because she had reached the legal
age. She really was beautiful, and the only thing that might be thought
unattractive was her big masculine hands which hung idle now like two
big claws.
“There is no dowry--and we don’t think much of that,” said Tsybukin to
the aunt. “We took a wife from a poor family for our son Stepan, too,
and now we can’t say too much for her. In house and in business alike
she has hands of gold.”
Lipa stood in the doorway and looked as though she would say: “Do with
me as you will, I trust you,” while her mother Praskovya the work-woman
hid herself in the kitchen numb with shyness. At one time in her youth
a merchant whose floors she was scrubbing stamped at her in a rage; she
went chill with terror and there always was a feeling of fear at the
bottom of her heart. When she was frightened her arms and legs trembled
and her cheeks twitched. Sitting in the kitchen she tried to hear what
the visitors were saying, and she kept crossing herself, pressing her
fingers to her forehead, and gazing at the ikons. Anisim, slightly
drunk, opened the door into the kitchen and said in a free-and-easy way:
“Why are you sitting in here, precious mamma? We are dull without you.”
And Praskovya, overcome with timidity, pressing her hands to her lean,
wasted bosom, said:
“Oh, not at all.... It’s very kind of you.”
After the visit of inspection the wedding day was fixed. Then Anisim
walked about the rooms at home whistling, or suddenly thinking of
something, would fall to brooding and would look at the floor fixedly,
silently, as though he would probe to the depths of the earth. He
expressed neither pleasure that he was to be married, married so
soon, on Low Sunday, nor a desire to see his bride, but simply went on
whistling. And it was evident he was only getting married because his
father and stepmother wished him to, and because it was the custom in
the village to marry the son in order to have a woman to help in the
house. When he went away he seemed in no haste, and behaved altogether
not as he had done on previous visits--was particularly free and easy,
and talked inappropriately.