‘Do you know,’ said Beletski, ‘if one were to dress Ustenka up and clean and polish her up a bit, she’d be better than all our beauties. Have you ever seen that Cossack woman who married a colonel; she was charming! Borsheva? What dignity! Where do they get it…’
‘I have not seen Borsheva, but I think nothing could be better than the costume they wear here.’
‘Ah, I’m first-rate at fitting into any kind of life,’ said Beletski with a sigh of pleasure. ‘I’ll go and see what they are up to.’
He threw his dressing-gown over his shoulders and ran out, shouting, ‘And you look after the “refreshments”.’
Olenin sent Beletski’s orderly to buy spice-bread and honey; but it suddenly seemed to him so disgusting to give money (as if he were bribing someone) that he gave no definite reply to the orderly’s question: ‘How much spice-bread with peppermint, and how much with honey?’
‘Just as you please.’
‘Shall I spend all the money,’ asked the old soldier impressively. ‘The peppermint is dearer. It’s sixteen kopeks.’
‘Yes, yes, spend it all,’ answered Olenin and sat down by the window, surprised that his heart was thumping as if he were preparing himself for something serious and wicked.
He heard screaming and shrieking in the girls’ hut when Beletski went there, and a few moments later saw how he jumped out and ran down the steps, accompanied by shrieks, bustle, and laughter.
‘Turned out,’ he said.
A little later Ustenka entered and solemnly invited her visitors to come in: announcing that all was ready.
When they came into the room they saw that everything was really ready. Ustenka was rearranging the cushions along the wall. On the table, which was covered by a disproportionately small cloth, was a decanter of chikhir and some dried fish. The room smelt of dough and grapes. Some half dozen girls in smart tunics, with their heads not covered as usual with kerchiefs, were huddled together in a corner behind the oven, whispering, giggling, and spluttering with laughter.
‘I humbly beg you to do honour to my patron saint,’ said Ustenka, inviting her guests to the table.
Olenin noticed Maryanka among the group of girls, who without exception were all handsome, and he felt vexed and hurt that he met her in such vulgar and awkward circumstances. He felt stupid and awkward, and made up his mind to do what Beletski did. Beletski stepped to the table somewhat solemnly yet with confidence and ease, drank a glass of wine to Ustenka’s health, and invited the others to do the same. Ustenka announced that girls don’t drink. ‘We might with a little honey,’ exclaimed a voice from among the group of girls. The orderly, who had just returned with the honey and spice-cakes, was called in. He looked askance (whether with envy or with contempt) at the gentlemen, who in his opinion were on the spree; and carefully and conscientiously handed over to them a piece of honeycomb and the cakes wrapped up in a piece of greyish paper, and began explaining circumstantially all about the price and the change, but Beletski sent him away.
Having mixed honey with wine in the glasses, and having lavishly scattered the three pounds of spice-cakes on the table, Beletski dragged the girls from their comers by force, made them sit down at the table, and began distributing the cakes among them. Olenin involuntarily noticed how Maryanka’s sunburnt but small hand closed on two round peppermint nuts and one brown one, and that she did not know what to do with them. The conversation was halting and constrained, in spite of Ustenka’s and Beletski’s free and easy manner and their wish to enliven the company. Olenin faltered, and tried to think of something to say, feeling that he was exciting curiosity and perhaps provoking ridicule and infecting the others with his shyness. He blushed, and it seemed to him that Maryanka in particular was feeling uncomfortable. ‘Most likely they are expecting us to give them some money,’ thought he. ‘How are we to do it? And how can we manage quickest to give it and get away?’
Chapter XXV
‘How is it you don’t know your own lodger?’ said Beletski, addressing Maryanka.
‘How is one to know him if he never comes to see us?’ answered Maryanka, with a look at Olenin.
Olenin felt frightened, he did not know of what. He flushed and, hardly knowing what he was saying, remarked: ‘I’m afraid of your mother. She gave me such a scolding the first time I went in.’
Maryanka burst out laughing. ‘And so you were frightened?’ she said, and glanced at him and turned away.
It was the first time Olenin had seen the whole of her beautiful face. Till then he had seen her with her kerchief covering her to the eyes. It was not for nothing that she was reckoned the beauty of the village. Ustenka was a pretty girl, small, plump, rosy, with merry brown eyes, and red lips which were perpetually smiling and chattering. Maryanka on the contrary was certainly not pretty but beautiful. Her features might have been considered too masculine and almost harsh had it not been for her tall stately figure, her powerful chest and shoulders, and especially the severe yet tender expression of her long dark eyes which were darkly shadowed beneath their black brows, and for the gentle expression of her mouth and smile. She rarely smiled, but her smile was always striking. She seemed to radiate virginal strength and health. All the girls were good-looking, but they themselves and Beletski, and the orderly when he brought in the spice-cakes, all involuntarily gazed at Maryanka, and anyone addressing the girls was sure to address her. She seemed a proud and happy queen among them.
Beletski, trying to keep up the spirit of the party, chattered incessantly, made the girls hand round chikhir, fooled about with them, and kept making improper remarks in French about Maryanka’s beauty to Olenin, calling her ‘yours’ (la votre), and advising him to behave as he did himself. Olenin felt more and more uncomfortable. He was devising an excuse to get out and run away when Beletski announced that Ustenka, whose saint’s day it was, must offer chikhir to everybody with a kiss. She consented on condition that they should put money on her plate, as is the custom at weddings.
‘What fiend brought me to this disgusting feast?’ thought Olenin, rising to go away.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘I’ll fetch some tobacco,’ he said, meaning to escape, but Beletski seized his hand.
‘I have some money,’ he said to him in French.
‘One can’t go away, one has to pay here,’ thought Olenin bitterly, vexed at his own awkwardness. ‘Can’t I really behave like Beletski? I ought not to have come, but once I am here I must not spoil their fun. I must drink like a Cossack,’ and taking the wooden bowl (holding about eight tumblers) he almost filled it with chikhir and drank it almost all. The girls looked at him, surprised and almost frightened, as he drank. It seemed to them strange and not right. Ustenka brought them another glass each, and kissed them both. ‘There girls, now we’ll have some fun,’ she said, clinking on the plate the four rubles the men had put there.
Olenin no longer felt awkward, but became talkative.
‘Now, Maryanka, it’s your turn to offer us wine and a kiss,’ said Beletski, seizing her hand.
‘Yes, I’ll give you such a kiss!’ she said playfully, preparing to strike at him.
‘One can kiss Grandad without payment,’ said another girl.
‘There’s a sensible girl,’ said Beletski, kissing the struggling girl. ‘No, you must offer it,’ he insisted, addressing Maryanka. ‘Offer a glass to your lodger.’
And taking her by the hand he led her to the bench and sat her down beside Olenin.
‘What a beauty,’ he said, turning her head to see it in profile.
Maryanka did not resist but proudly smiling turned her long eyes towards Olenin.
‘A beautiful girl,’ repeated Beletski.
‘Yes, see what a beauty I am,’ Maryanka’s look seemed to endorse. Without considering what he was doing Olenin embraced Maryanka and was going to kiss her, but she suddenly extricated herself, upsetting Beletski and pushing the top off the table, and sprang away towards the oven. There was much shouting and laughter. Then Beletski whispered something to the girls and suddenly they all ran out into the passage and locked the door behind them.
‘Why did you kiss Beletski and won’t kiss me?’ asked Olenin.
‘Oh, just so. I don’t want to, that’s all!’ she answered, pouting and frowning. ‘He’s Grandad,’ she added with a smile. She went to the door and began to bang at it. ‘Why have you locked the door, you devils?’
‘Well, let them be there and us here,’ said Olenin, drawing closer to her.
She frowned, and sternly pushed him away with her hand. And again she appeared so majestically handsome to Olenin that he came to his senses and felt ashamed of what he was doing. He went to the door and began pulling at it himself.
‘Beletski! Open the door! What a stupid joke!’
Maryanka again gave a bright happy laugh. ‘Ah, you’re afraid of me?’ she said.
‘Yes, you know you’re as cross as your mother.’
‘Spend more of your time with Eroshka; that will make the girls love you!’ And she smiled, looking straight and close into his eyes.
He did not know what to reply. ‘And if I were to come to see you– ‘ he let fall.
‘That would be a different matter,’ she replied, tossing her head.
At that moment Beletski pushed the door open, and Maryanka sprang away from Olenin and
