“What does Peter Erogovich have to do with it?”
“Hm, you’re being a tease, acting as if you don’t know anything,” Olga said, blushing a little.
“My dear young lady, you are speaking in riddles.”
“Hadn’t you heard? I am going to marry Peter Egorovich!”
“Married?” I was startled. My eyes must have popped open. “To Peter Egorovich?”
“Oh, my! No, excuse me, that’s Mr. Urbenin.”
I looked at her smiling, flushed face.
“You … getting married? To Mr. Urbenin? You must be joking!”
“I am not joking at all … This is not the least bit funny.”
“You are getting married … to Mr. Urbenin?” I mumbled, getting pale for no reason. “If this is not a joke, then what is this?”
“What are you talking about—this is not funny! There is nothing unusual or strange in it,” Olga said, pursing her little lips.
Several moments passed in silence. I looked at this beautiful young woman, at her fresh, almost childish face, and I was surprised that she could make such a terrible joke. For a moment, I imagined myself in the place of the old, decrepit Mr. Urbenin, with his huge pendulous ears and cracked, prickly skin, the mere touch of which would scratch this young and delicate female body. The picture frightened me!
“Yes, he is a little bit too old for me, he is over fifty.” Olga sighed. “But he loves me anyway. His love is reliable.”
“It is not that important to have a reliable partner, but it is important to have happiness.”
“Well, well, he has enough money, he’s no pauper, and he has some good connections. I am certainly not in love with him, but is happiness restricted to people who are madly in love? I know what these love matches can become!”
“My dear child!” I looked into her blue eyes, frightened and bewildered. “When did you manage to stuff your little head with all this terrible common sense? I’d rather believe that you are making jokes at my expense, but where did you learn to joke this way?”
Olga looked at me with surprise.
“I don’t see what the problem is. It displeases you that a young woman should marry an older man. Is that it?”
Olga suddenly flushed, clenched her lower jaw, and didn’t wait for my answer. The words all came in a rush:
“If you can’t deal with this, then you go live deep in the forest in a hut with your crazed father, and you wait for a young man to come and marry you! Can you imagine those long winter nights when you pray for death to come and take you, can you imagine what it feels like, this horror in the middle of the forest?”
“This all is not sensible, my dear Olga. This is not mature, this is all foolish and wrong. If you are joking, I don’t know what to say. You’d be better to be quiet, just stop talking now, don’t pollute the air with your silly words. In your place, I would keep silent.”
“At least he can afford to buy medicine for my father and take care of him,” she whispered.
“How much money do you need to take care of your father?” I cried out. “Here, take the money from me! A hundred? Two? A thousand? You’re lying to me, Olga. You’re not marrying him to take care of your father.”
The girl in red moved a little closer to me, and for an instant we were illuminated by dazzling white light. There was a huge crack somewhere above, and it seemed to us that something big and heavy fell from with a huge noise from the sky down to the earth. There was a crash.
“Are you afraid of thunderstorms?” I asked Olga.
She lowered her cheek to her shoulder and looked at me trustingly, like a child.
“Yes, I hate them,” she whispered, thinking for a while. “My mother was struck by lightning. They even wrote about it in the newspaper. She was walking across a field, crying. Her life was very hard in this world…. God took pity on her and killed her with His heavenly electricity.”
“How do you know what electricity is?”
“I studied it at school. You know that people who die during a thunderstorm or at war, and those who die during giving birth, they all go to heaven. This is not written in the Bible, but it’s true. One day I’ll be killed by a thunderstorm, and I will go to heaven. Are you an educated man?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll probably laugh at me. Here’s how I want to die. I want to get dressed up in the most expensive and fashionable dress, the one I saw on Lady Sheffer. Then I will stand on top of the mountain, and let the lightning kill me, so everyone will see. A terrible thunderstorm, you know, and then the end.”
“What a wild fantasy.” I smiled, looking into her eyes filled with the sacred horror of an effective death. “And you don’t wish to die in an ordinary dress?”
“No,” Olga shook her head decisively, “And I want everyone to see me go.”
“The dress you’re wearing is better that all those expensive gowns. It suits you very well. You look like a red flower in a green forest.”
“No that’s not true, this is a cheap one. This dress is no good,” Olga sighed.
I was so excited by Olga’s news that I did not notice that we’d arrived in the front entrance area of the count’s mansion and stopped in front of the manager’s door. When I saw the manager, Mr. Urbenin, run out with his children joining him to help Olga with her purchases, I headed for the mansion’s main entrance, without saying good-bye to her or greeting him.
CHAPTER TWO THE WEDDING
I was sitting at the table, hating the crowd of guests who gazed with curiosity and admiration at the vast, corrupt decadence of Count Korneev’s inherited wealth. The walls were covered with rich mosaics, the rooms had sculptured ceilings, and the luxurious Persian rugs and Louis XIV–style rococo furniture aroused everyone’s esteem.
A perpetual vain smile covered the count’s mustachioed face. He accepted his guests’ approbation as his due, but he’d never made the slightest effort to accumulate these riches; instead, he deserved scorn and opprobrium for his indifference to the riches created by his father, his grandfathers, and his great-grandfathers over many generations.
Many in the crowd were sufficiently rich and independent that they could afford to judge objectively, but no one said a single critical word—all admired and smiled at the Count.
Mr. Urbenin was smiling, too, but he had his own reasons for doing so. He wore the grin of a happy child, talking about his young wife and asking questions like these:
“Who’d have thought that a young beauty like this could fall in love with an old man like me, three times her age? Couldn’t she find someone younger and better-looking? There’s no understanding women’s hearts!”
He even turned to me and remarked in passing,
“We’re living in strange times. Ha-ha! An old man like me steals a fairy-tale creature right out from under the nose of a young man like you! What were you waiting for? Ha! Young men these days—they’re not like we used to be.”
Gratitude swelled his huge chest as he spoke, and he bowed and raised his wineglass to the Count:
“You know my feelings toward you, my lord. You have done so much for me—all your attention. Only aristocrats and oligarchs could celebrate a wedding in this fashion. All this luxury, and all these famous guests—what can I say? This is the happiest day of my life!” And he went on like this.
Olga, however, disliked his obsequious speeches; she forced a smile at the Count’s jokes and left the delicacies on her plate untouched. As Mr. Peter Egorovich Urbenin became drunker and happier, she grew more and more unhappy.
During the second course of the banquet, I looked at her and was so surprised that my heart beat faster. She pressed a napkin to her mouth, almost crying. She glanced around, frightened that someone might notice that she was nearly in tears.
“Why are you so sour today, Olga?” the Count asked. “Peter Egorovich, you’re to blame. You haven’t pleased your wife. Ladies and gentlemen, let the groom kiss the bride! Yes, I demand a kiss. Not that she should kiss me—ha-ha-ha, no, they should kiss each other!”