Before the Wedding

On Thursday of last week, in the house of her most respectable parents, Miss Podzatylkina was declared the bride of Nazaryev, collegiate registrar. The betrothal went off as well as could be. Two bottles of Lanin champagne were drunk, a bucket and a half of vodka; the young ladies drank a bottle of Lafite. The papas and the mamas of the groom and the bride wept on cue, the groom and the bride kissed willingly; an eighth-form schoolboy proposed a toast with the words, "O tempora, o mores!""O the times, O the customs!" (Latin). and "Salvete, boni futuri conjuges""Long live the future good spouses!" (Latin). – delivered with real flourish; red-headed Vanka Smyslomalov, who while the toasts went round had nothing whatever to do, seized the exact right moment, the perfect instant, to fall into towering tragic feeling, ran his fingers through the hair on his big head, struck himself on the knee with his fist, and cried out: "Devil take it, I loved her and I love her still!" – which gave the young ladies indescribable pleasure.

Miss Podzatylkina is remarkable only in that she is not remarkable for anything. No one has ever seen her intellect or knows of it, and so not a word about that. Her looks are the most ordinary: her papa’s nose, her mama’s chin, cat’s eyes, an unexceptional little bust. She can play the piano, but not from notes; she helps her mama in the kitchen, never goes without a corset, cannot eat Lenten food, sees in the mastery of the letter "yat"Є (yat), a letter of the pre-1918 Russian alphabet; correct spelling of words containing it was treated as the mark of a proper education. the beginning and the end of all wisdom, and loves, above everything else in the world, well-built men and the name "Roland."

Mr. Nazaryev is a man of middling height, with a white face that expresses nothing, curly hair, a flat back of the head. He serves somewhere or other, draws a wage so meagre it barely covers his tobacco; he perpetually smells of egg soap and carbolic, considers himself a terrible lady-killer, talks loudly, marvels day and night; when he talks, he sprays. He dandifies himself, looks down on his parents, and never lets a young lady pass without telling her, "How naive you are! You ought to read literature!" More than anything else in the world he loves his own handwriting, the magazine RazvlechenieRazvlechenie ("Entertainment"), a popular illustrated humor weekly of the period., and boots that squeak, and most of all he loves himself, and especially the moment when he sits in the company of young ladies, drinks his tea with a lump of sugar on the side, and with great ferocity denies the existence of devils.

Such, then, are Miss Podzatylkina and Mr. Nazaryev!

The morning after the betrothal, Miss Podzatylkina, having risen from sleep, was summoned by the cook to her mama. Her mama, lying in bed, read her the following lecture:

– What’s the meaning of you dressing up today in your wool dress? You might have gone about in the barège today, all the same. My head, how it aches, it’s a horror! Yesterday that bald mug, your father I mean, saw fit to play a joke. Much I need his idiot jokes! He hands me something in a little glass... "Drink this," he says. I thought there was wine in the glass – well, and I drank it, and in the glass was vinegar with oil off the herrings. That’s his idea of a joke, the drunken mug! All he’s good for is making a person a laughingstock, the slobbering fool! What amazes me and astonishes me is that you were merry yesterday and didn’t cry. What were you glad about? Found some money, did you? I’m amazed! Anyone would think you were glad to leave your parents’ house. And it must be so, that’s how it comes out. What? Love? What love is that? You’re not marrying your man out of love at all, you’re only after his rank! What, isn’t that the truth? That’s just it, that it’s the truth. And as for me, my dear, I don’t care for him. Much too full of himself and proud. You put him in his place... What-t-t-t? Don’t you dare think of it!.. Within a month the two of you will be at each other’s throats: he’s that sort, and you’re that sort. Marriage is only pleasant for young ladies; there’s nothing good in it. I’ve tried it myself, I know. Live and you’ll learn. Don’t fidget about so, my head’s spinning enough as it is without that. Men are all fools, it’s no great sweetness living with them. And yours is a fool too, for all he carries his head so high. Don’t you go being too obedient to him, don’t indulge him in everything and don’t respect him too much: there’s nothing to respect. Ask your mother about everything. The moment anything happens, come straight to me. Don’t you do a thing on your own without your mother, God preserve you! A husband never advises anything good, never teaches anything good, he angles everything for his own advantage. You mark that! Don’t you listen too much to your father either. Don’t invite him to live in your house, or else you, God knows, out of foolishness... might blurt something out. He’s forever scheming to squeeze something out of the two of you. He’ll sit at your place whole days on end, and what use is he to you? He’ll be begging for vodka and smoking your husband’s tobacco. He’s a wicked, harmful man, for all that he’s your father. His face, the good-for-nothing, looks kind enough, but the soul in him is spiteful past all telling! If he starts borrowing money – don’t you give him any, because he’s a swindler, titular councillorA low civil-service rank (ninth of fourteen in the Table of Ranks); Gogol’s Akaky Akakievich in "The Overcoat" holds the same rank. though he is. There, he’s shouting, he’s calling you! Go to him, and don’t you tell him what I’ve just been saying about him. Or else he’ll pester me at once, the tormentor of Christian souls, may the earth lie on him like a mountain! Go on, while my heart’s still in its place!.. Enemies, the both of you, that’s what you are to me! When I die, mark my words then! Torturers!

Miss Podzatylkina left her mother and went off to her papa, who was at that moment sitting on his bed sprinkling Persian powderAn insecticide powder made from dried pyrethrum flowers, used against fleas and bedbugs. onto his pillow.

– My daughter! – her papa said to her. – I am very glad that you intend to join in matrimony with so clever a gentleman as Mr. Nazaryev. Very glad, and I wholly approve this union. Go forth, my daughter, and do not be afraid! Marriage is so solemn a fact that... well, what is there to say? Live, be fruitful, and multiply. God will bless you! I... I... am weeping. Though, tears lead to nothing. What is human weeping? Nothing but a faint-hearted psychiatry and nothing more! But hear now, my daughter, my counsel! Do not forget your parents! Your husband will never be better to you than your parents, truly, he never will! A husband likes only your material beauty, but to us you are dear in your entirety. What will your husband love you for? For your character? For your kindness? For the emblem of your feelings? No, madam! He will love you for your dowry. For we are not giving with you, my darling, some mere kopeck, but a full thousand rubles! You must understand that! Mr. Nazaryev is a very fine gentleman, but do not honor him above your father. He will attach himself to you, but he will not be a true friend to you. There will be moments when he... No, I had better hold my tongue, my daughter! Your mother, my darling, listen to her, but with caution. She is a kind woman, but two-faced, free-thinking, and affected. She is a noble, honest person, but... the devil with her! She cannot advise you what your father, the author of your being, can advise you. Do not take her into your house. Husbands do not adore their mothers-in-law. I myself never loved my mother-in-law, so little did I love her that more than once I allowed myself to sprinkle burnt cork into her coffee, from which resulted some quite presentable little fainting fits. Lieutenant Zyumbumbunchikov stood court-martial over his mother-in-law. Don’t you recall that case? Though, true, you did not yet exist on this earth then. The main thing, in everything and everywhere, is the father. Know that, and heed him alone. Then, my daughter... European civilization has bred in the female sex that opinion that the more children a person has, the worse for her. A lie! A fairy tale! The more children parents have, the better. Though, no! Not that! Quite the reverse! I am mistaken, my darling. The fewer children, the better. That’s what I read yesterday in some journal. Some fellow named MalthusThomas Malthus (1766–1834), English economist, author of the theory of population that population growth outstrips the food supply. made it up. Just so... Someone has driven up... Ah! Why, it’s your groom! With real flair, the rascal, the rogue that he is! What a man! A regular Walter Scott!Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), Scottish novelist, here invoked as a byword for romantic gallantry. Go on, my darling, receive him, and I will get dressed in the meantime.

Mr. Nazaryev rolled up. The bride went to meet him and said:

– Please, sit down, no ceremony!

He scraped his right foot twice and sat down beside his bride.

– How are you getting on? – he began, with his usual free and easy manner. – How did you sleep? As for me, you know, I didn’t sleep the whole night through. I read Zola and dreamed of you. Have you read Zola? Surely not? Ai-yai-yai! Why, that’s a crime! A certain clerk lent him to me. Writes in grand style! I’ll let you have him to read. Ah! If only you could understand! I feel such feelings as you have never in your life felt! Allow me to give you a peck!

Mr. Nazaryev half rose and kissed Miss Podzatylkina’s lower lip.

– And where are your people? – he went on, more free and easy still. – I need to see them. I’m a bit angry at them, I’ll confess. They’ve made a proper fool of me. Just consider... Your papa told me that he was a court councillor,A mid-level civil-service rank (seventh of fourteen in the Table of Ranks) – two grades above titular councillor. and now it turns out that he’s only a titular one. Hm!.. Is that permissible? And then, madam... They promised to give fifteen hundred with you, and your mama told me only yesterday that I’ll get no more than a thousand. Isn’t that swinish behavior? Even the Circassians, bloodthirsty people that they are, don’t do such things. I won’t allow myself to be cheated! Do anything you like, but don’t touch my self-regard and my self-devotion! That’s not humane! That’s not rational! I am an honest man, and so I have no love for dishonest ones! With me, anything is possible, but don’t play tricks, don’t taunt, just act as a man’s conscience dictates! That’s how it is! And what sort of faces do they have, anyway! What kind of faces are those? Those aren’t faces at all! Forgive me, but I feel no filial feeling toward them. Just wait till we’re married, we’ll bring them to heel. I don’t care for insolence and barbarism! Though I’m no skeptic and no cynic, still I understand a thing or two about breeding. We’ll bring them to heel! My own parents have long since not so much as squeaked at me. What, have you had your coffee already? No? Well, then I’ll have it with you. Go and bring me a cigarette, since I’ve forgotten my own tobacco at home.

The bride went out.

This is before the wedding... And what will happen after the wedding, I imagine, is known not to the prophets alone, nor to the sleepwalkers only.