XXIII
The Prepolovenskys undertook the arrangement of the wedding. It was decided that they should be married in a village six versts from the town. Varvara felt uneasy about marrying in the town, after they had lived together so many years as relatives. The day fixed for the wedding was concealed. The Prepolovenskys spread a rumour that it was to take place on Friday, but it was really to be on Wednesday. They did it to prevent curiosity seekers from coming to the wedding. Varvara more than once said to Peredonov:
“Ardalyon Borisitch, don’t you say a word of when the wedding is to be or they might hinder us.”
Peredonov gave the expenses for the wedding unwillingly and with humiliations for Varvara. Sometimes he brought his stick with the Koukish head and said to Varvara:
“Kiss the Koukish and I’ll give you the money. If you don’t, I won’t.”
Varvara kissed the Koukish.
“What of that, it won’t split my lips,” she said.
The date of the wedding was kept secret even from the bride’s-men until the day itself, so that they might not chatter about it. At first Routilov and Volodin were invited as bride’s-men and both eagerly accepted; Routilov looked for an amusing experience, while Volodin felt flattered to play such an important role at such a distinguished event in the life of such an esteemed personage. Then Peredonov considered that one bride’s-man was not enough for him. He said:
“Varvara, you can have one, but I must have two. One isn’t enough for me—it will be difficult to hold the crown39 over me. I’m a tall man.”
And Peredonov invited Falastov as his second bride’s-man.
Varvara grumbled:
“To the devil with him! We’ve got two, why should we have any more?”
“He’s got gold spectacles. He’ll look important,” said Peredonov.
On the morning of the wedding Peredonov washed in hot water, as he always did, to avoid catching cold, and then demanded rouge, explaining:
“Now I have to rouge myself every day or else they’ll think I’m getting old and they won’t appoint me as inspector.”
Varvara disliked giving him any of her rouge, but she had to yield—and Peredonov coloured his cheeks. He muttered:
“Veriga himself paints so as to look younger. You don’t expect me to get married with white cheeks.”
Then, shutting himself in his bedroom, he decided to mark himself, so that Volodin could not change places with him. On his chest, on his stomach, on his forearms and in various other places he marked in ink the letter P.
“Volodin ought to be marked too. But how can he be? He would see it and rub it off,” thought Peredonov dejectedly.
Then a new thought came into his mind—to put on a pair of corsets so that he should not be taken for an old man if he happened to bend over. He asked Varvara for a pair of corsets, but Varvara’s corsets proved to be too tight—they would not come together.
“They ought to have been bought earlier,” he said savagely. “You never think of anything in time.”
“What man wears corsets?” said Varvara. “No one does.”
“Veriga does,” said Peredonov.
“Yes, Veriga is an old man, but you, Ardalyon Borisitch, thank God, are in your prime.”
Peredonov smiled with self-satisfaction, looked in the mirror and said:
“Of course, I shall live another hundred and fifty years.”
The cat sneezed under the bed. Varvara said with a smile:
“There, even the cat’s sneezing! That shows it’s true.”
But Peredonov suddenly frowned. The cat now aroused dread in him and its sneezing seemed to him a sign of ominous cunning.
“He’ll sneeze something that’s not wanted,” he thought, and got under the bed and began to drive the cat out. The cat mewed savagely, pressed against the wall, and suddenly with a loud, piercing mew, jumped between Peredonov’s hands and ran out of the room.
“A Dutch devil,” Peredonov abused the animal savagely.
“He’s certainly a devil,” affirmed Varvara. “He’s become altogether wild. He won’t let himself be stroked, as if the devil had got into him.”
The Prepolovenskys sent for the bride’s-men early in the morning. At ten o’clock all had gathered at Peredonov’s. Grushina also came, and Sofya with her husband. They were handed vodka and the usual zakouska.
Peredonov ate little and thought dejectedly as to how he could distinguish himself from Volodin.
“He’s curled like a sheep,” he thought maliciously, and suddenly imagined that he too might comb his hair in a special way. He rose from the table and said:
“You go on eating and drinking—I don’t object; but I’ll go to the hairdresser and I’ll have my hair done in the Spanish style.”
“What is the Spanish style?” asked Routilov.
“Wait and you’ll see.”
When Peredonov went to get his hair trimmed, Varvara said:
“He’s always inventing new notions. He sees devils. If he only drank less gin, the cursed tippler!”
Prepolovenskaya said with a sly smile:
“Well, as soon as you are married, Ardalyon Borisitch will get his place and settle down.”
Grushina sniggered. She was amused by the secrecy of this wedding, and she was excited by an intense desire to create an ignominious spectacle of some sort and yet not be mixed up with it. On the day before she had whispered in an underhand way to her friends the place and hour of the wedding. And early that morning she had called in the blacksmith’s younger son, had given him a five-kopeck piece, and hinted to him that towards evening he should wait outside the town where the newly married couple would pass, to throw rubbish at them. The boy gladly agreed and gave his sworn promise not to betray her. Grushina reminded him:
“You did give away Cherepnin when they beat you.”
“We were fools,” said the boy. “Now, let ’em hang us and we won’t tell.”
And the boy, in confirmation of his oath, ate a small handful of loam. For this Grushina added another three kopecks.
At the hairdresser’s Peredonov demanded the barber himself. The barber, a young man who had lately finished a course at the town school and who had read books from the rural library, was just finishing cutting the hair of a landed proprietor. When he had finished, he came up to Peredonov.
“Let him go first,” said Peredonov angrily.
The man paid and left. Peredonov sat down in front of the mirror.
“I want my hair trimmed and properly arranged,” said he. “I have an important affair on today, something special, and so I want my hair arranged in the Spanish style.”
The boy apprentice, who stood at the door, snorted with amusement. His master looked sternly at him. He had never had occasion to trim anyone’s hair in Spanish style, and did not know what the Spanish style was or even if there were such a style. But if the gentleman demanded such a thing, then it must be assumed that he knew what he wanted. The young hairdresser did not want to betray his ignorance. He said respectfully:
“It’s impossible to do it with your hair, sir.”
“Why impossible?” said Peredonov taken aback.
“Your hair is badly nourished,” explained the hairdresser.
“Do you expect me to pour beer over it?” growled Peredonov.
“Excuse me, why beer?” said the hairdresser affably. “When your hair is trimmed your head shows signs of baldness and what’s left isn’t enough to do the thing in the Spanish style.”
Peredonov felt himself crushed by the impossibility of having his hair trimmed in the Spanish style. He said dejectedly:
“Well, cut it as you like.”
He began to wonder whether the hairdresser had been persuaded not to cut his hair in a distinguished style. He ought not to have spoken about it at home. Evidently, while he was walking gravely and sedately along the street, Volodin had run like a little sheep by back streets and had conspired with the hairdresser.
“Would you like a spray, sir?” said the hairdresser, having finished trimming his hair.
“Spray me with mignonette. The more, the better,” demanded Peredonov. “You might at least make up by spraying me with plenty of mignonette.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t keep mignonette,” said the hairdresser in confusion. “How will opopanax do?”
“You can’t do anything I want,” said Peredonov bitterly. “Go ahead, and spray me with whatever you’ve got.”
He returned home in vexation. It was a windy day. The gates kept banging, yawning and laughing in the wind. Peredonov looked at them dispiritedly. How could he face the drive? But everything arranged itself.
Three carriages were waiting—they had to sit down and drive away at once, in order not to attract attention. Many curiosity mongers might collect and follow them to the wedding, if the carriages waited about too long. They took their places and drove off: Peredonov with Varvara, the Prepolovenskys with Routilov, Grushina with the other bride’s-men.
A cloud of dust rose in the square. Peredonov heard a noise of axes. Barely visible through the dust, a wooden wall loomed and grew. They were building a fortress. Muzhiks, savage and morose-looking, glimmered in their red shirts through the dust.
The carriages ran past; the terrible vision flashed by and vanished. Peredonov looked around in terror, but nothing was visible, and he could not decide to tell anyone about his vision.
A sadness tormented Peredonov the whole way. Everything looked hostilely at him. The wind blew ominously. The sky was black. The wind was in their faces and seemed to moan for something. The trees gave no shadow—they kept their shadows within themselves. But the dust rose, a long grey, half-transparent serpent. The sun hid behind the clouds—did it look out from under them?
The road was undulating. Unexpected bushes, copses and fields rose from behind low hillocks, and streams appeared under the hollow-sounding, wooden arched bridges.
“The eye-bird flew by,” said Peredonov morosely, looking into the whitish, misty distance of the sky. “One eye and two wings, and nothing more.”
Varvara smiled. She thought that Peredonov had been drunk since the morning. But she did not argue with him—“for,” she thought, “he might get angry and refuse to go to the wedding.”
All four of Routilov’s sisters were already in a corner of the church, hiding behind a column. Peredonov did not see them at first, but later during the ceremony when they appeared from their ambush and came forward, he saw them and felt frightened. They actually did not do anything unpleasant, they did not demand (as he had been afraid at first) that he should chase Varvara away and take one of them. They only kept laughing all the time. And their laughter, quiet at first, resounded louder and more evil in his ears all the time, like the laughter of untameable furies.
There were practically no outsiders in the church. Only two or three old women came from somewhere or other. And this was fortunate, for Peredonov conducted himself curiously and stupidly. He yawned, mumbled, nudged Varvara, complained about the smell of incense, wax and muzhiks.
“Your sisters are always laughing,” he grumbled, turning to Routilov. “They’ll perforate their livers with laughing.”
Besides that, the nedotikomka disturbed him. It was dirty and dusty and kept hiding under the priest’s vestments.
Both Varvara and Grushina thought the church ceremonies amusing. They giggled continuously. The words about a woman cleaving to her husband evoked special merriment. Routilov also giggled. He considered it his duty always and everywhere to amuse the ladies. Volodin conducted himself sedately, and crossed himself, preserving an expression of profundity on his face. The church ceremonies did not suggest to his mind anything but that they were an established custom which ought to be fulfilled, and that the fulfilment of all ceremonies leads one to a certain inner convenience: he went to church on Sundays, and he prayed, and was absolved, he had sinned and repented and again he was absolved. Now this is excellent and convenient—all the more convenient because once outside the church he did not have to think about churchly matters, but was guided entirely by quite different and worldly rules.
The ceremony was barely over and they had not yet had time to leave the church when suddenly a drunken crowd tumbled noisily into the church. It was Mourin and his friends.
Mourin, dusty and tousled, as usual, embraced Peredonov and shouted:
“You can’t hide it from us, old boy! We’re such fast friends that you can’t part us by pouring cold water on us. And yet you hid it from us, you tricky fellow!”
Exclamations came from all sides:
“Villain, you didn’t invite us!”
“But we’re here all the same!”
“Yes, we found it out without you!”
The newcomers embraced and congratulated Peredonov. Mourin said:
“We missed the way because we stopped for a drink, or else we’d have conferred the pleasure of our company on you earlier.”
Peredonov looked at them gloomily and did not reply to their congratulations. Malevolence and fear tormented him.
“They’re always tracking me everywhere,” he thought dejectedly.
“You might have crossed your foreheads,” he said angrily. “Or possibly you were thinking evil against me.”
The visitors crossed themselves, laughed and joked. The young officials especially distinguished themselves. The deacon reproached them.
Among the visitors was a young men with red moustaches whom Peredonov did not even know. He resembled a cat to an extraordinary degree. Wasn’t it their cat turned into human shape? It was not for nothing that this young man kept snarling—he had not forgotten his cattish habits.
“Who told you?” asked Varvara angrily of the new guests.
“A nice young woman told us,” replied Mourin. “But we have forgotten who it was.”
Grushina turned around and winked at them. The new guests smiled back but did not give her away. Mourin said:
“As you like, Ardalyon Borisitch, but we’re coming with you and you must give us champagne. Don’t be a skinflint. You can’t pour cold water on such friends as we are, and yet you’ve tried to get married on the quiet.”
When the Peredonovs returned from the wedding the sun had gone down, but the sky was all fiery and golden. But this did not please Peredonov. He growled:
“They’ve dabbed pieces of gold on the sky and they’re falling off. Who ever saw such a waste!”
The locksmith’s sons met them just outside the town in a crowd of other street boys. They ran alongside and hooted. Peredonov trembled with fear. Varvara uttered curses, spat at the boys, and showed them the Koukish. The guests and the bride’s-men roared with laughter.
At last they reached home. The entire company tumbled into Peredonov’s house with a shout, a hubbub and whistling. They drank champagne, then took to vodka and began to play cards. They kept on drinking all night. Varvara got tipsy, danced, and was happy; Peredonov was also happy—Volodin had not yet been substituted for him. As always, the visitors conducted themselves disrespectfully and indecently towards Varvara; this seemed to her to be in the order of things.
After the wedding the Peredonovs’ existence changed very little. Only Varvara’s attitude towards her husband became more assured and independent. She ran about less for her husband—but, through deep-rooted habit, she was still a little afraid of him. Peredonov, also from habit, shouted at her as he used to do and sometimes even beat her. But he too scented the assurance she had acquired with her new position. And this depressed him. It seemed to him that if she was not so afraid of him as she had been, it was because she had strengthened her criminal idea to leave him and get Volodin into his place.
“I must be on my guard,” he thought.
Varvara triumphed. She, together with her husband, paid visits to the town ladies, even to those with whom she was little acquainted. At these visits she showed a ridiculous pride and awkwardness. She was received everywhere though in many houses with astonishment. Varvara had ordered in good time for these visits a hat from the best local modiste. The large vivid flowers set abundantly on the hat delighted her.
The Peredonovs began their visits with the Headmaster’s wife. Then they went to the wife of the Marshal of the Nobility.
On the day that the Peredonovs had prepared to make the visits—of which, of course, the Routilovs knew beforehand—the sisters went to Varvara Nikolayevna Khripatch, to see out of curiosity how Varvara Peredonov would conduct herself. The Peredonovs soon arrived. Varvara made a curtsy to the Headmaster’s wife, and in a more than usually jarring voice said:
“Well, we’ve come to see you. Please love us and be kind to us.”
“I’m very glad,” replied the Headmaster’s wife constrainedly. And she seated Varvara on the sofa.
Varvara sat down with obvious pleasure in the place indicated, spread out her rustling green dress, and said, trying to appear at ease:
“I’ve been a Mam’zell until now, but now I’ve become a Madam. We’re namesakes—I’m Varvara and you’re Varvara—and we’ve not been to each other’s houses. While I was a Mam’zell, I sat at home most of the time. What’s the good of sitting by one’s stove all the time! Now Ardalyon Borisitch and I will live more socially. Grant me a favour—we will come to you and you will come to us, Mossure to Mossure and Madame to Madame.”
“But I hear that you’re not going to stay here long,” said the Headmaster’s wife. “I’m told that you and your husband are going to be transferred.”
“Yes, the paper will come soon and then we shall leave here,” replied Varvara. “But as the paper has not yet come, we must stay here a little longer and show ourselves.”
Varvara had hopes of the inspector’s position. After the wedding she wrote a letter to the Princess. She had not yet received an answer. She decided to write again at the New Year.
Liudmilla said:
“But we thought, Ardalyon Borisitch, that you were going to marry the young lady, Pilnikov?”
“What’s the good of me marrying anyone else?” said Peredonov. “I need patronage.”
“But how did your affair with Mademoiselle Pilnikov get broken off,” Liudmilla teased him. “Didn’t you pay her attentions? Did she refuse you?”
“I’ll show her up yet,” growled Peredonov morosely.
“That’s an idée fixe of Ardalyon Borisitch,” said the Headmaster’s wife with a dry laugh.