The Little Demon, Fyodor Sologub [reading the story of the TXT] 📗

take the trouble to get a new jar of better jam. They hadn’t cranberry jam only but several other kinds.

Vershina really did give a good deal of attention to Mourin. Seeing that she had little hope of Peredonov, she was looking elsewhere for a husband for Marta. Now she was trying to catch Mourin. Half-civilised by his pursuit of hard-earned gains, this landed proprietor eagerly fell to the lure. Marta pleased him.

Marta was happy because it was her constant desire to find a husband and to have a good house and home⁠—that would be complete happiness. And she looked at Mourin with loving eyes. The huge forty-years-old man, with his coarse voice and plain face, seemed to her in every movement a model of manly strength, cleverness, beauty and goodness.

Peredonov noticed the loving glances exchanged by Mourin and Marta⁠—he noticed them because he expected Marta to pay attention to him. He said gruffly to Mourin:

“You sit there like a bridegroom. Your whole face is shining.”

“I have reason to be happy,” said Mourin in a brisk, cheerful voice. “I have managed my business very well.”

He winked at his hostesses. They both had gay smiles. Peredonov asked gruffly, contemptuously screwing up his eyes:

“What is it? Have you found a bride? Has she a big dowry?”

Mourin went on as if he had not heard these questions:

“Natalya Afanasyevna there⁠—may God be good to her⁠—has agreed to take charge of my Vaniushka. He’ll live here as if he were in Christ’s bosom, and my mind will be at rest, knowing that he won’t be spoiled.”

“He’ll get into mischief with Vladya,” said Peredonov morosely. “They’ll burn the house down.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” shouted Mourin. “Don’t you worry about that, my dear Natalya Afanasyevna, you’ll find him as straight as a fiddle-string.”

To cut short this conversation, Vershina said with her wry smile:

“I should like to eat something tart.”

“Perhaps you’d like some bilberries and apples⁠—I’ll get them,” said Marta quickly rising from her chair.

“Do, please.”

Marta ran out of the room. Vershina did not even look after her. She was used to taking Marta’s services for granted. She was sitting deep in her sofa puffing out blue curling clouds of smoke, and compared the two men talking to each other, looking at Peredonov angrily and indifferently, at Mourin gaily and animatedly. Mourin pleased her more of the two. He had a good-natured face, while Peredonov could not even smile. She liked everything in Mourin⁠—he was large, stout, attractive, spoke in an agreeable, low voice, and was very respectful to her. Vershina even thought at certain moments that she ought to arrange the matter so that Mourin should become engaged not to Marta but to herself. But she always ended her reflections by magnanimously yielding him to Marta.

“Anyone would marry me,” she thought, “because I have money. I can choose almost anyone I like. If I liked, I could even take this young man,” and she rested her glance, not without satisfaction, on Vitkevitch’s youthful, impudent, yet handsome face⁠—a boy who spoke little, ate a great deal and looked continuously at Vershina, smiling insolently.

Marta brought the bilberries and apples in an earthenware cup and began to relate how she had dreamed the night before that she had gone to a wedding as a bridesmaid, where she ate pineapples and pancakes with mead; on one pancake she had found a hundred-rouble note and she cried when they took it from her, and woke up in tears.

“You should have hidden it on the quiet so that no one could see it,” said Peredonov rather gruffly. “If you can’t even keep money in a dream, what sort of a housewife will you make?”

“There’s no reason to feel sorry for this money,” said Vershina. “There are many things seen in dreams!”

“I feel as if I’d really lost the money,” said Marta ingenuously. “A whole hundred roubles!”

Tears appeared in her eyes, and she forced a laugh in order not to cry. Mourin anxiously put his hands into his pocket and exclaimed:

“My dear Marta Stanislavovna, don’t feel so put out about it, we can soon mend the matter.”

He took a hundred-rouble note from his wallet, put it before Marta on the table, and slapped his hand into her palm, shouting:

“Permit me! No one will take this away!”

Marta was about to rejoice but suddenly flushed violently and said in confusion:

“Oh, Vladimir Ivanovitch, I didn’t mean that! I can’t take it. Really you are⁠ ⁠…”

“Now, don’t offend me by refusing it,” said Mourin with a laugh, not taking up the money. “Let’s say that your dream has become realised.”

“No, but how can I? I feel ashamed. I wouldn’t take it for anything.” Marta resisted, looking with desirous eyes upon the hundred-rouble note.

“Why do you protest when it’s given to you?” said Vitkevitch. “It’s good luck falling right into your hands,” he continued with an envious sigh.

Mourin stood in front of Marta and said in a persuasive voice:

“My dear Marta Stanislavovna, believe me, I give it with all my heart⁠—please take it! And if you don’t want to take it for nothing, then take it for looking after Vaniushka. As to my agreement with Natalya Afanasyevna, let that stand. But this is for you⁠—for looking after Vanya.”

“But how can I, it’s too much,” said Marta irresolutely.

“It’s for the first half-year,” and he bowed very low to Marta. “Don’t offend me by refusing it. Take it and be a sister to Vaniushka.”

“Well, Marta, you’d better take it,” said Vershina. “And thank Vladimir Ivanitch.”

Marta, flushing with shame and pleasure, took the money.

Mourin began to thank her ardently.

“You’d better marry at once⁠—it would be cheaper,” said Peredonov gruffly. “How generous he’s got all of a sudden!”

Vitkevitch roared with laughter, which the others pretended they had not heard. Vershina began to tell a dream of her own, but Peredonov interrupted her before she had finished by saying goodbye. Mourin invited him to his house for the evening.

“I must go to Vespers,” said Peredonov.

“Ardalyon Borisitch has suddenly become very zealous in churchgoing,” said Vershina with a