"They are all right, thank God, they get on quite well," said Anisim. "Only something has happened to Ivan Yegorov: his old woman, Sofya Nikiforovna, is dead. Of consumption. They ordered the memorial dinner for the peace of her soul from the confectioner's at two and a half rubles a head. And there was wine. There were peasants from our village, and Yegorov paid two and a half rubles for them, too. They didn't eat a thing, though. What does a peasant understand about sauces!"
"Two and a half rubles!" said his father, shaking his head.
"Well, il's not like the country there. You go into a restaurant to have a snack, you order one thing and an- other, a crowd collects, you have a drink—and before you know it it is daylight and you've three or four rubles each to pay. And when you are with Samorodov he likes to have coffee with cognac in it after everything, and cognac is sixty kopecks a little glass."
"And he is making it all up," said the old man de- lightedly; "he is making it all up!"
"I am always with Samorodov now. It's Samorodov who writes my letters to you. He writes splendidly. And if I were to tell you, mamma," Anisim went on gaily, ad- dressing Varvara, "the sort of fellow that Samorodov is, you would not believe me. We call him Muhtar, because he is black like an Armenian. I can see through him, I know all his affairs as well as I know the five fingers of my hand, and he feels that, and he always follows me about, we're as thick as thieves. He seems not to like it in a way, but he can't get on without me. Where I go he goes. I have a true sharp eye, mamma. I see a peas- ant selling a shirt at the rag fair, 'Stay, that shirt was stolen.' And really it turns out it is so: the shirt was stolen."
"How can you tell?" asked Varvara.
"I just know it, I have just an eye for it. I know noth- ing about the shirt, only for some reason I seem drawn to it: it's stolen, and that's all I can say. The boys in the department have got a saying: 'Oh, Anisim has gone to shoot snipe!' That means looking for stolen goods. Yes. . . • Anybody can steal, but it is another thing to keep what you've stolen! The earth is wide, but there is no place on it to hide stolen goods."
"A ram and two ewes were carried off from the Gun- torevs' last week," said Varvara, and she heaved a sigh, "and there is no one to and find them. . . . Oh, oh, oh . . ."
'Well, I might have a try. I could do that."
The day of the wedding arrived. It was a cool but bright, cheerful April day. Since early morning people were driving about Ukleyevo in carriages drawn by teams of two or three horses, the bells jingling, and gay ribbons decorating the yokes and manes. The rooks, dis- turbed by this activity, were cawing noisily in the wil- lows, and the starlings sang their loudest unceasingly as though rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tzy- bukins'.
Indoors the tables were already loaded with long fish, smoked hams, stuffed fowls, boxes of sprats, pickled savories of various sorts, and many bottles of vodka and wine; there was a smell of smoked sausage and of sour lobster. Old Tzybukin walked about near the tables, tapping with his heels and sharpening the knives against each other. They kept calling Varvara and asking for things, and she, breathless and distraught, was con- stantly running in and out of the kitchen, where the man cook from Kostukov's and a woman cook employed by Hrymin Juniors had been at work since early morn- ing. Aksinya, with her hair curled, in her stays without her dress on, in new creaky boots, flew about the yard like a whirlwind showing glimpses of her bare knees and bosom. It was noisy, there was a sound of scolding and oaths; passers-by stopped at the wide-open gates, and in everything there was a feeling that something extraor- dinary was happening.
"They have gone for the bride!"
The carriage bells jingled and died away far beyond the village. . . . Between two and three o'clock people ran up: again there was a jingling of bells: they were bringing the bride! The church was full, the candelabra were lighted, the choir were singing from music books as old Tzybukin had wished it. The glare of the lights and the bright-colored dresses dazzled Lipa; she felt as though the singers with their loud voices were hitting her on the head with hammers. The stays, which she had put on for the first time in her life, and her shoes pinched her, and her face looked as though she had only just come to herself after fainting; she gazed about without understanding. Anisim, in his black coat with a red cord instead of a tie, stared at the same spot lost in thought, and at every loud burst of singing hurriedly crossed himself. He felt touched and disposed to weep. This church was familiar to him from earliest childhood; at one time his dead mother used to bring him here to take the sacrament; at one time he used to sing in the choir; every icon he remembered so well, every corner. Here he was being married, he had to take a wife for the sake of doing the proper thing, but he was not think- ing of that now, he had somehow forgotten his wedding completely. Tears dimmed his eyes so that he could not see the icons, he felt heavy at heart; he prayed and be- sought God that the misfortunes that threatened him, that were ready to burst upon him tomorrow, if not to- day, might somehow pass him by as storm-clouds in time of drought pass over a village without yielding one drop of rain. And so many sins were heaped up in the past, so many sins and getting away from them or wip- ing them out was so beyond hope that it seemed incon- gruous even to ask forgiveness. But he did ask forgive- ness, and even gave a loud sob, but no one took any notice of that, since they supposed he had had a drop too much.
There was the sound of a fretful childish waiclass="underline"
"Take me away from here, mamma darling!"
"Quiet there!" cried the priest.
When the young couple returned from the church people ran after them; there were crowds, too, round the shop, round the gates, and in the yard under the windows. Peasant women came to sing songs in their honor. The young couple had scarcely crossed the thresh- old when the choristers, who were already standing in the outer room with their music books, broke into a chant at the top of their voices; a band brought expressly from the town struck up. Sparkling Don wine was brought in tall glasses, and Yelizarov, a carpenter who was also a contractor, a tall, gaunt old man with eye- brows so bushy that his eyes could scarcely be seen, said, addressing the pair:
"Anisim and you, my child, love one another, lead a godly life, little children, and the Heavenly Mother will not abandon you."
He fell upon the old father's shoulder and gave a sob.
"Grigory Petrovich, let us weep, let us weep joy!" he said in a thin voice, and then at once burst out laughing and continued in a loud bass. "Ho-ho-ho! This one, too, is a fine daughter-in-law for you! Everything is in its place in her; everything runs smoothly, no creak- ing, the whole mechanism works well, lots of screws in it."
He was a native of the Yegoryev district, but had worked in the mills at Ukleyevo and in the neighbor- hood since his youth, and had made it his home. For years he had been a familiar figure, as old and gaunt and lanky as now, and for years he had had the nickname "Crutch." Perhaps because he had done nothing but repair work for forty years, he judged everybody and everything by its soundness, always asking himself if things were in need of repair. Before sitting do^ to table he tried several chairs to see whether they were solid, and he touched the smoked white-fish, too.
After the Don wine, they all sat do^ to table. The visitors talked, moving their chairs. The choristers were singing in the outer room. The band was playing, and at the same time the peasant women in the yard were singing their songs in unison, and there was an awful, wild medley of sounds which made one giddy.
Crutch fidgeted about on his chair and prodded his neighbors with his elbows, prevented people from talk- ing, and laughed and cried alternately.