The Party eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 257 pages of information about The Party.

The Party eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 257 pages of information about The Party.

All this conversation made Anna Akimovna suddenly long to be married —­long intensely, painfully; she felt as though she would give half her life and all her fortune only to know that upstairs there was a man who was closer to her than any one in the world, that he loved her warmly and was missing her; and the thought of such closeness, ecstatic and inexpressible in words, troubled her soul.  And the instinct of youth and health flattered her with lying assurances that the real poetry of life was not over but still to come, and she believed it, and leaning back in her chair (her hair fell down as she did so), she began laughing, and, looking at her, the others laughed, too.  And it was a long time before this causeless laughter died down in the dining-room.

She was informed that the Stinging Beetle had come.  This was a pilgrim woman called Pasha or Spiridonovna—­a thin little woman of fifty, in a black dress with a white kerchief, with keen eyes, sharp nose, and a sharp chin; she had sly, viperish eyes and she looked as though she could see right through every one.  Her lips were shaped like a heart.  Her viperishness and hostility to every one had earned her the nickname of the Stinging Beetle.

Going into the dining-room without looking at any one, she made for the ikons and chanted in a high voice “Thy Holy Birth,” then she sang “The Virgin today gives birth to the Son,” then “Christ is born,” then she turned round and bent a piercing gaze upon all of them.

“A happy Christmas,” she said, and she kissed Anna Akimovna on the shoulder.  “It’s all I could do, all I could do to get to you, my kind friends.”  She kissed Auntie on the shoulder.  “I should have come to you this morning, but I went in to some good people to rest on the way.  ‘Stay, Spiridonovna, stay,’ they said, and I did not notice that evening was coming on.”

As she did not eat meat, they gave her salmon and caviare.  She ate looking from under her eyelids at the company, and drank three glasses of vodka.  When she had finished she said a prayer and bowed down to Anna Akimovna’s feet.

They began to play a game of “kings,” as they had done the year before, and the year before that, and all the servants in both stories crowded in at the doors to watch the game.  Anna Akimovna fancied she caught a glimpse once or twice of Mishenka, with a patronizing smile on his face, among the crowd of peasant men and women.  The first to be king was Stinging Beetle, and Anna Akimovna as the soldier paid her tribute; and then Auntie was king and Anna Akimovna was peasant, which excited general delight, and Agafyushka was prince, and was quite abashed with pleasure.  Another game was got up at the other end of the table—­played by the two Mashas, Varvarushka, and the sewing-maid Marfa Ptrovna, who was waked on purpose to play “kings,” and whose face looked cross and sleepy.

While they were playing they talked of men, and of how difficult it was to get a good husband nowadays, and which state was to be preferred—­that of an old maid or a widow.

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The Party from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.