(From French)
Participating my decisions. I am getting married…
And, that I loved the whole two years, which everywhere first sought out my eyes, with which the meeting seemed to me bliss - my God - she is almost my ....
Waiting for a decisive answer was the most painful feeling in my life.. Waiting for the last swept out cards, remorse, sleep before the fight - all this in comparison with it does not mean anything.
The thing is, I was not afraid of failure. One of my friends used to say,: "I do not understand, how to woo, if you know maybe, there will be no failure ".
Marry! Easy to say - most people see marriage shawls, borrowed, a new coach and a pink dressing-gown.
Others are a dowry and a sedate life ...
Still others marry like this, because all married - because they 30 years old. Ask them, what marriage, in return they will tell you vulgar epigram.
I am getting married, t. is. I am a victim regardless, mine carefree, whimsical independence, my luxurious habits, stranstviяmi without goals, seclusion, nepostoyanstvom.
I'm ready to double my life already incomplete. I never fussed about happiness, I could do without it. Now I need for two, and where can I get it?
Until I am married, that mean my job? I have a sick uncle *, which almost never see. Zayed him - he is very happy; No - so he excuses me:
"My rake is young, it is not up to me ". I have no one in the correspondence, their debts are paid every month. In the morning I get up when I want, I want to accept, pleases walk - I saddle my smart, smirnuyu Jenny, alleys food, I look in the window of dwarf houses: Here sits the family of the samovar, there servant sweeps the room, Further girl learns the piano, beside her artisan musician. She turns to me scattered face, teacher scolding her, I step past the food ... Coming home - make out books, paper, I bring in the order of my dressing table, casually dressed, If the food in the guests, with the utmost diligence, if you dine in the restaurant, where to read or a new novel, or magazines; Well if Walter Scott and Cooper did not write, and in the newspapers there any criminal proceedings, it requires a bottle of champagne on ice, look, as a glass run cold from cold, I drink slowly, rejoicing, that the dinner cost me 17 rubles, and I can afford to this prank. Food to the theater, I sought in any bed a wonderful piece, black eyes; intercourse between us begins - I'm busy until the junction. I spend the evening or in a noisy society, where close all city, where I see everyone and everything, and where no one notices me, or amiable circle of favorites, where I say to myself and where I listen. I come back later; I fall asleep, reading a good book. Again the next day'm riding lanes, by the house, where the girl played the piano. It insists on the piano lesson yesterday. She looked at me, as a friend, and laughed. - Here is my single life ...
If they refuse me, I thought, I go to foreign lands, - and already imagined myself in a pyroscafé. Fuss about me, say goodbye, carry bags, watching the clock. Piroskaf moved: nautical, fresh air blowing in my face; I had a long look at the fleeing Beach - Mu native land, adieu*#. Beside me, the young woman begins to feel sick; it gives her pale face expression languid tenderness ... She asks me for water. God bless, to Kronstadt there for me busy ...
At that moment they gave me a note: response to my letter. Father of the Bride of my kindly invited me to her ... There is no doubt, my proposal is accepted. Nadia, my angel - she's my!.. All sad doubts vanished before this paradise in thought. Brosayus a coach, jump; Now their house; I go to the front; already hastily reception servants see, I groom. I was confused: these people know my heart; I talk about my love to his servile language!..
Father and mother sat in the living room. The first welcomed me with open arms. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket, he wanted to cry, but I could not, and decided to blow his nose. In his eyes were red with mother. called Nadya; she went pale, awkward. Father came and made an image of St. Nicholas and Our Lady of Kazan. We are blessed. Nadia gave me cold, unresponsive hand. Mother spoke of dowry, father of Saratov village - and I groom.
so, so it's not a mystery of two hearts. It is today the news home, tomorrow - areal.
So the poem, deliberate in seclusion, in the summer nights under the moonlight, then sold in a bookshop and criticized in journals fools *.
* * *
Everyone rejoices at my happiness, all congratulate, all loved me. Whoever offers me his services: who is your house, who borrow money, who are familiar with Bukhara shawls. Some worry about the numerous future of my family and offers me 12 dozen gloves with a portrait of m-lle Sontag *.
Young people begin to mend with me: already respected the enemy in me. Ladies praise me in the eye My Choice, but being absent regret my fiancée: "Poor! She is so young, so innocent, and he is so windy, such immoral ... "
I confess, it begins to bore me. I like the custom of some ancient people: the groom secretly stole his bride. The next day he had already represented her city Gossip Girl as his wife. We was preparing a familial happiness to block ads, gifts, known throughout the city, with formed letters, visits, say the word, temptation of all kinds ...
