Ivan lvanych coughed, as a preliminary to making some remark, but first lighted his pipe, gazed at the moon, and then said, between pauses:
"Yes, thoughtful, decent people, readers of Shchedrin and Turgenev, of Buckle and all the rest of them, yet they knuckled under and put up with it—that's just how it is."
"Bclikov and I lived in the same house," Burkin went on, "on the same floor, his door facing mine; we often saw each other, and I was acquainted with his domestic arrangements. It was the same story: dressing-go^, nightcap, blinds, bolts, prohibitions and restrictions of all sorts, and, 'Oh, you can't tell what may come of it!' Lenten fare didn't agree with him, yet he could not eat meat, as people might say that Belikov did not keep the fasts, and he ate perch fried in butter—not a Lenten dish, yet one could not call it meat. He did not keep a fe- male servant for fear people might think evil of him, but instead employed an old man of sixty, called Afa- nasy, half-witted and given to drinking, who had once been an orderly and could cook after a fashion. This Afanasy was usually standing at the door with folded arms; he would sigh deeply and always mutter the same thing:
" 'The likes of them is thick as hops hereabouts!'
"Belikov's bedroom was tiny and boxlike; his bed was curtained. When he went to bed he drew the bed- clothes over his head; it was hot and stuffy; the wind rattled the closed doors; a humming noise came from the stove and the sound of sighs from the kitchen, omi- nous sighs— And he lay under the quilt, terrified. He was afraid that something might happen, that Afanasy would murder ^m, that thieves would break in, and he had bad dreams all night long, and in the morning when we went to school together, he was downcast and pale, and it was plain that the place, swarming with people, towards which he was going, filled his whole being with dread and aversion, and tiiat walking beside me was disagreeable to a man of his unsociable tempera- ment.
" 'How noisy the classrooms are,' he used to say, as though trying to find an explanation for his distress. 'It's an outrage.'
"And imagine, this teacher of Greek—this man in a shell—came near to getting married."
Ivan Ivanych glanced rapidly into the barn, and said, "You are joking!"
"Yes, strange as it seems, he nearly got married. A new teacher of geography and history, a certain Mihail Savvich Kovalenko, a Ukrainian, was assigned to our school. He did not come alone, but with his sister, Varenka. He was a tall, dark young man with huge hands, and one could see from his face that he spoke in a deep voice, and, in fact, his voice seemed to come out of a barreclass="underline" 'Boom, boom, boom!' She was not so young, about thirty, but she too was tall, well built, with black eyebrows and red cheeks—in a word, she was not a girl but a peach, and so lively, so noisy; she was always singing Little Russian songs and laughing. At the least provocation, she would go off into ringing laughter: 'Ha-ha-hal' We first got well acquainted with the Kovalenkos, I remember, at the principal's name- day party. Among the morose, emphatically dull peda- gogues who attend even a name-day party as a duty, we suddenly saw a new Aphrodite risen from the foam; she walked with her arms akimbo, laughed, sang, danced. She sang with feeling 'The Winds Are Blow- ing' and then another Ukrainian song and another, and she fascinated us all, all, even Belikov. He sat down beside her and said with a saccharine smile:
" 'The Little Russian tongue reminds one of ancient Greek in its softness and agreeable sonority.'
"That flattered her, and she began telling him with feeling and persuasiveness that they had a farm in the Gadyach district, and that her Mummy lived there, and that they had such pears, such melons, such kabaki! The Little Russians call a pumpkin kabak [Russian for tavern], while their taverns they call shinki, and they make a borshch with tomatoes and eggplant in it, 'which is so delicious—ever so delicious!'
"We listened, and listened, and suddenly the same idea occurred to all of us:
" 'It would be a good thing to marry them off,' the principal's wife whispered to me.
"For some reason we all recalled that our friend Be- likov was unmarried, and it seemed strange to us now that we had failed to notice it before, and in fact had completely lost sight of so important a detail in his life. What was his attitude towards women? How had he settled for himself this vital problem? Until then we had had no interest in the matter; perhaps we had not even admitted the idea that a man who wore rubbers in all weathers and slept behind curtains was capable of love.
" 'He is way past forty and she is thirty,' the prin- cipal's wife clarified her idea. 'I believe she would marry him.'
'What isn't done in the provinces out of boredom, how many useless and foolish things! And that is be- cause what is necessary isn't done at all. What need was there, for instance, for us to make a match for diis Belikov, whom one could not even imagine as a mariied man? The principal's wife, the inspector's wife, and all our high school ladies, grew livelier and even bettei looking, as though they had suddenly found an object in life. The principal's wife would take a box at the theater, and lo and behold! Varenka would be sitting in it, fanning herself, beaming and happy, and beside her would be Belikov, a twisted little man, looking as though he had been pulled out of his lodging by pin- cers. I would give an evening party and the ladies would insist on my inviting Bclikov and Varenk;i. In short, the machine was set in motion. It turned out th.it Varenka was not averse to matrimony. Her life with her brother was not very cheerfuclass="underline" they did nothing but argue and quarrel with one another for days on end. Here is a typical scene: Kovalenko strides down the street, a tall, husky fellow, in an embroidered shirt, a lock of hair falling over his forehead from under his cap, in one hand a bundle of books, in the other a thick, knotted stick; he is followed by his sister, also carrying books.
" 'But you haven't read it, Mihailik!' she is arguing loudly. 'I tell you, I swear you haven't read it at all!'
" 'And I tell you I have read it,' bellows Kovalenko, banging his stick on the sidewalk.
" 'Oh, my goodness, Mihailik, why are you so cross? We are only discussing principles.'
" 'I tell you that I have read it!' Kovalenko shouts, more loudly than ever.
"And at home, if there an outsider present, there was sure to be a fusillade. She must have been fed up with such a life and longed for a home of her own. Be- sides, there was her age; there was no time left to pick and choose; she was apt to marry anybody, even a teacher of Creek. Come to think of it, most of our young ladies don't care whom they marry so long as they do marry. Be that as it may, Varenka began to show an unmistakable inclination for Belikov.
"And Belikov? He used to call on Kovalenko just as he did on the rest of us. He would arrive, sit down, and go on sitting there in silence. He would sit quietly, and Varenka would sing to him 'The Winds Are Blowing' or would stare at him pensively with her dark eyes, or would suddenly go off into a peal of laughter—'Ha- ha-ha!'
"In amorous affairs and in marrying, suggestion plays a great part. Everybody—both his colleagues and the ladies—began assuring Belikov that he ought to get married, that there was nothing left for him in life but to get married; we all felicitated him, and with solemn faces delivered ourselves of various platitudes, such as 'Marriage is a serious step.' Besides, Varenka was good- looking and attractive; she was the daughter of a civil councilor, and she owned a farm; above all, she was the first woman who had treated him cordially and affec- tionately. His head was turned, and he decided that he really ought to get married.''
''Well, at that point," said Ivan Ivanych, "you should have taken away his rubbers and umbrella."