Part 28 (1/2)

”'I'll break every bone in your body, a nice fellow you to be engaged, and to Akoulka; if I like I'll sleep every blessed night with her when she's your wife.'

”'You're a hound, and a liar,' that's what I said to him. But he insulted me so in the street, before everybody, that I ran to Aukoudim's and said, 'I won't marry her unless I have fifty roubles down this moment.'”

”And they really did give her to you in marriage?”

”Me? Why not, I should like to know? We were respectable people enough.

Father had been ruined by a fire a little before he died; he had been a richer man than Aukoudim Trophimtych.

”'A fellow without a s.h.i.+rt to his back like you ought to be only too happy to marry my daughter;' that's what old Aukoudim said.

”'Just you think of your door, and the pitch that went on it,' I said to him.

”'Stuff and nonsense,' said he, 'there's no proof whatever that the girl's gone wrong.'

”'Please yourself. There's the door, and you can go about your business; but give back the money you've had!'

”Then Philka Marosof and I settled it together to send Mitri Bykoff to Father Aukoudim to tell him that we'd insult him to his face before everybody. Well, I had my skin as full as it could hold right up to the wedding-day. I wasn't sober till I got into the church. When they took us home after church the girl's uncle, Mitrophone Stepanytch, said:

”'This isn't a nice business; but it's over and done now.'

”Old Aukoudim was sitting there crying, the tears rolled down on his gray beard. Comrade, I'll tell you what I had done: I had put a whip into my pocket before we went to church, and I'd made up my mind to have it out of her with that, so that all the world might know how I'd been swindled into the marriage, and not think me a bigger fool than I am.”

”I see, and you wanted her to know what was in store for her. Ah, was----?”

”Quiet, nunky, quiet! Among our people I'll tell you how it is; directly after the marriage ceremony they take the couple to a room apart, and the others remain drinking till they return. So I'm left alone with Akoulka; she was pale, not a bit of colour on her cheeks; frightened out of her wits. She had fine hair, supple and bright as flax, and great big eyes. She scarcely ever was known to speak; you might have thought she was dumb; an odd creature, Akoulka, if ever there was one. Well, you can just imagine the scene. My whip was ready on the bed. Well, she was as pure a girl as ever was, not a word of it all was true.”

”Impossible!”

”True, I swear; as good a girl as any good family might wish.”

”Then, brother, why--why--why had she had to undergo all that torture?

Why had Philka Marosof slandered her so?”

”Yes, why, indeed?”

”Well, I got down from the bed, and went on my knees before her, and put my hands together as if I were praying, and just said to her, 'Little mother, pet, Akoulka Koudimovna, forgive me for having been such an idiot as to believe all that slander; forgive me. I'm a hound!'

”She was seated on the bed, and gazed at me fixedly. She put her two hands on my shoulders and began to laugh; but the tears were running all down her cheeks. She sobbed and laughed all at once.

”Then I went out and said to the people in the other room, 'Let Philka Marosof look to himself. If I come across him he won't be long for this world.'

”The old people were beside themselves with delight. Akoulka's mother was ready to throw herself at her daughter's feet, and sobbed.

”Then the old man said, 'If we had known really how it was, my dearest child, we wouldn't have given you a husband of that sort.'

”You ought to have seen how we were dressed the first Sunday after our marriage--when we left church! I'd got a long coat of fine cloth, a fur cap, with plush breeches. She had a pelisse of hareskin, quite new, and a silk kerchief on her head. One was as fine as the other. Everybody admired us. I must say I looked well, and pet Akoulka did too. One oughtn't to boast, but one oughtn't to sing small. I tell you people like us are not turned out by the dozen.”

”Not a doubt about it.”

”Just you listen, I tell you. The day after my marriage I ran off from my guests, drunk as I was, and went about the streets crying, 'Where's that scoundrel of a Philka Marosof? Just let him come near me, the hound, that's all!' I went all over the market-place yelling that out. I was as drunk as a man could be, and stand.