“Well, yes, I did have some talk about that affair with Tikhon Ilitch. God grant him good health for such a fine idea!”
The Bride looked at him and shook her head. “Well, and why isn’t it fine? Great heavens, but you are queer, Kuzma Ilitch! He offers money, and takes the expense of the wedding on himself. Then again, he has not picked out some widower or other, but a young, unmarried man, without vices--neither rotten nor a drunkard--”
“But he’s a sluggard, a bully, a downright fool,” added Kuzma.
The Bride dropped her eyes and made no reply. Heaving a sigh, she turned and went toward the door.
“As you like,” she said, her voice trembling. “’Tis your affair. Break it off--God help you--”
Kuzma opened his eyes very wide and shouted: “Stop! have you lost your senses? Do you think I wish you ill?”
The Bride turned round and halted. “And isn’t it wishing me ill?” she said hotly and roughly, her cheeks flushing and her eyes blazing. “What is to become of me, according to your idea? Am I to go on for ever as an outcast, at the thresholds of other people’s houses? Eating the crusts of strangers? Wandering about, a homeless beggar? Or am I to hunt up some old widower? Haven’t I swallowed tears enough already?”
And her voice broke. She fell to weeping and left the room. In the evening Kuzma tried to convince her that he had no intention of breaking up the affair, and at last she believed him and smiled a friendly, reserved smile.
“Well, thank you,” she said in the pleasant tone which she used to Ivanushka.
But at this point the tears began to quiver on her eyelashes, and once more Kuzma gave up in despair. “What’s the matter now?” said he.
And the Bride answered softly: “Well, perhaps Deniska is not much of a joy--”
Koshel brought from the post-office a newspaper nearly six weeks old. The days were dark and foggy, and Kuzma read from morning till night, seated at the window.
And when he had finished and had made himself dizzy with the number of fresh executions, he was benumbed. Heretofore he had been suffocated with rage when he read the newspapers--futile rage, because human receptivity was unequal to taking in what one read there. Now his fingers grew cold--nothing more. Yes, yes, there was nothing to get excited about. Everything went as if according to programme. Everything fitted together perfectly. He raised his head: the sleet was driving in white slanting lines, falling upon the black, miserable little village, on the muddy roads with their hillocks and hollows, on the horse-dung, the ice, and the pools of water. A twilight mist concealed the boundless plain--all that vast empty space with its snows, forests, settlements, towns--the kingdom of cold and of death.