Fifty-Two Stories

“My best men were two of my colleagues, and Manya’s were Staff-Captain Polyansky and Lieutenant Gernet. The bishop’s choir sang magnificently. The sputtering of the candles, the brilliance, the finery, the officers, the multitude of happy, pleased faces, and Manya’s especially ethereal look, and the whole situation in general, and the words of the marriage prayers moved me to tears, filled me with festive feeling. I thought: how my life has blossomed, how poetically beautiful it has come to be recently! Two years ago I was still a student, I lived in cheap furnished rooms on Neglinny Passage, with no money, no family, and, as it seemed then, no future. Yet now I am a high school teacher in one of the best provincial capitals, I am secure, loved, pampered. It is for me, I thought, that this crowd has now gathered, for me that three chandeliers are burning, the protodeacon is bellowing, the singers are outdoing themselves, and for me that she is so young, elegant, and joyful—this young being who will soon be called my wife. I remembered our first meetings, our rides out of town, my declaration of love, and the weather which, as if on purpose, had been wondrously fine all summer; and that happiness which, when I lived on Neglinny Passage, had seemed possible to me only in novels and stories, I now experienced in reality, as if I were taking it in my hands.

“After the wedding everyone crowded in disorder around Manya and me and expressed their sincere pleasure, congratulated us, and wished us happiness. The brigadier general, an old man of about seventy, congratulated only Manyusya and said in an old man’s rasping voice, so loudly that it resounded all through the church:

“ ‘I hope, my dear, that even after the wedding you will remain the same rose you are now.’

“The officers, the headmaster, and all the teachers smiled politely, and I also felt on my face a pleasant, insincere smile. Dearest Ippolit Ippolitych, the teacher of history and geography, who always says what everyone already knows, firmly shook my hand and said with feeling:

“ ‘Up to now you weren’t married and lived alone, but now you’re married and will live as two.’

“From the church we drove to the two-story unstuccoed house I received as a dowry. Besides this house, Manya comes with twenty thousand in cash and also some vacant lot in Melitonovo with a watch house, where they say there are lots of chickens and ducks that are untended and have gone wild. On coming back from church, I stretched out, sprawled on the Turkish divan in my new study, and smoked: it felt soft, comfortable, and cozy, like never before in my life, and just then the guests shouted ‘Hurrah’ and in the front room a bad orchestra played flourishes and all sorts of nonsense. Varya, Manya’s sister, came running into the study with a wineglass in her hand and with some sort of strange, tense expression, as if her mouth was full of water; it looked as if she wanted to run on further, but suddenly she started laughing and sobbing, and the wineglass fell to the floor with a clank. We took her under the arms and led her out.

“ ‘Nobody can understand!’ she muttered afterwards in the farthest room, lying on the wet-nurse’s bed. ‘Nobody, nobody! My God, nobody can understand!’

“But everybody understood perfectly well that she was four years older than her sister Manya and was still unmarried, and that she wept not out of envy, but out of a sad awareness that her time was passing and might already have passed. When they were dancing the quadrille, she was already in the reception room, with a tearful, heavily powdered face, and I saw how Staff-Captain Polyansky held a dish of ice cream out for her, and she ate it with a little spoon…

“It is already past five in the morning. I sat down with my diary in order to describe my full and varied happiness, and I thought I would write some six pages and read them to Manya tomorrow, but, strangely enough, everything got confused in my head, became vague, dreamlike, and the only thing I remember with clarity is that episode with Varya, and I want to write: poor Varya! I could just sit here and write: poor Varya! What’s more, the trees are rustling: it’s going to rain; the crows are cawing, and for some reason my Manya, who just fell asleep, has a sad face.”