the following story was told me by a doctor. It happened in the village in the government of Tambov. There was a peasant called Vichareff who had three daughters; one of them was called Anoushka, one Douniasha, and the third Natasha. Their father was well off, but extraordinarily close-fisted; his thirst for land and his ambition to accumulate were unlimited. He arranged an advantageous match for his eldest daughter, Douniasha, and was exerting all his wits to find a husband for his younger daughter who should be equally well-to-do, so that the two weddings might take place on the same day, and thereby save him trouble and expense. His third daughter was considered to be too young as yet to marry. Now Anoushka repeated over and over again, not without tears, that she did not wish p. 224to be married; but her father and her mother (whose will, always feeble, had now completely ceased to work, owing to years of unceasing compliance with the views and the wishes of her domineering husband) paid no attention to this. At last Vichareff succeeded in striking a bargain with one of his neighbours named Kroustalieff, the purport of which was that Kroustalieff’s son, Dimitri, should marry Anoushka, in return for which Vichareff promised to get him some horses at an unusually low price, since Vichareff was a horse-dealer on a small scale. The bargain was struck, and the matter was arranged, and Anoushka was told that she was to marry Dimitri. Dimitri was a young man aged eighteen, nice-looking, and not unintelligent; notwithstanding this, when Anoushka was informed of the matter, she burst into a storm of tears, and declared no power on earth could induce her to marry him. Her father and mother, however, took no notice of her tears and her protest, and invited their friends to an evening party to celebrate the engagement. Now the reason Anoushka was determined not to marry p. 225Dimitri, was that she loved her sister’s affianced husband, Ivan. He, for his part, was quite unaware of this, and indeed nobody knew of it in the whole village except an old man, Alexis by name, who was said to be versed in astrology and whom the peasants often consulted in matters which concerned the other world. Anoushka went to Alexis and told him her story; he promised to cast her horoscope and to see what could be done, and he bade her return to him in a few days. She did so. When Alexis saw her he shook his head. “There is nothing to be done, child,” he said, “the stars are against you: you must wed Dimitri; but no good will come of it, neither to you nor to him.” Then Anoushka asked him if he could not give her a love philtre or a charm, which would make Ivan love her. “I can give you a charm,” said Alexis, “and I can give you love philtres, but I cannot turn the stars from their courses, nor prevent you wedding Dimitri in the church, although no good shall come of it, either to you or to him. There is nothing to be done, save to p. 226obey; this matter is the business of Providence.” And so Anoushka went home, taking neither philtre nor charm, and spent the whole day weeping at her work, but her parents did not even trouble to scold her, so surely did they know that their will would be accomplished. And in the evenings Ivan and Dimitri would come to their cottage and sing and play on the Balalaika; and while Douniasha and Ivan looked at each other with love, and spoke in whispers of a thousand nothings, like two happy birds twittering in a tree, Anoushka said no word to Dimitri, although he was gentle with her and civil-spoken; and he attributed her silence and her gloomy look to bashfulness and modesty. When the evening of Vichareff’s party arrived, the whole village came to his house. And some of the gentry from the landowner’s house came to look on at the dancing. The small room of Vichareff’s cottage was crowded to overflowing, a little space being left in the centre for the dancers. Outside the cottage there were more people, those for whom there was no room inside, and they crowded round p. 227the door and windows, straining and craning their necks to get a glimpse of the festivity. Those who were at the window, finding that the window-panes got in their way, broke the glass and put their heads through the empty sash. Inside, some one was playing on a large concertina, and the dancers walked up and down the room with faces of grave and solemn indifference, performing the necessary steps and singing the usual chant. The couples paced to and fro opposite each other, and at the end of every verse of the chanted music, each girl was kissed by her partner. When this dance was over sunflower seeds were handed round on a plate to the guests, and glasses of tea were brought for the gentry; then a soldier who was home on leave, performed a solo in the centre of the room, dancing and stamping according to intricate rule, until he could no more. Douniasha looked radiantly happy; she was dressed in pale green, and wore a necklace of bright beads; but Anoushka, in her pink silk finery, looked as white as a ghost, and said no word during the whole evening. And when Dimitri danced with her and kissed her, she p. 228seemed no more to notice him than if he had been a phantom. They danced all night, but never once during all those hours of mirth and gaiety, did Anoushka smile. Three weeks later preparations were made for the wedding. Vichareff bought provisions; the wedding was to be a magnificent one. The landowner lent his horses, and Anoushka and Douniasha were to be driven to the church in two troikas. Dimitri had a new salmon-pink shirt for the occasion, and in his high boots there was an unusual number of creases; he appeared with pride to show himself to Anoushka, but she took no notice of him. On her wedding day she was paler than ever, and her eyes were red with crying. Dimitri asked her if anything was the matter with her and whether she was not feeling well; but she said that she was perfectly well. So he attributed her strange appearance and ways to the inscrutable habits of womankind, and asked no further questions. But, shortly before the wedding pairs were to leave for the church, Anoushka went to her mother and said that she could not marry Dimitri. Her mother p. 229said that she supposed the child had another sweetheart; such was the way of girls. But if she had, it was of no consequence, she said; she would soon forget him. In any case she was to marry Dimitri, and that immediately. Then Anoushka broke into a passion of weeping, and begged and implored her mother not to let her marry Dimitri; and her mother lost patience, and said she deserved to be beaten; that she never heard such nonsense in her life. “Now stop that crying,” she ended by saying, “or I will call your father, and he shall put an end to this nonsense!” Then Anoushka dried her tears and said: “Very well, since it is so, let it be so. But I will never be Dimitri’s wife!” Then the troikas drove up to the cottage door, their bells jangling and tinkling, and the bridal couples all in their best clothes were driven off at a canter to the church, and the wedding took place. And Anoushka and Douniasha were crowned with gold crowns, and walked round the altar (which was placed in the centre of the church with a tall candle on it) in memory of David dancing round the Ark, p. 230according to the rite of the Orthodox Church. After the ceremony was over, they drove home once more and the feasting, which had already lasted one day, began again. The two bridegrooms were taken by their friends through the village, stopping at nearly every cottage to have their healths drunk, and to join in the toasts, while crowds of children followed them, some of them beating small tom-toms and scrambling every fifty yards or so for sugar, which was thrown to them in handfuls by the bridegrooms and their friends. Towards the evening the bridegrooms were fairly intoxicated, although they could both walk quite straight and speak without difficulty. In Vichareff’s house an uproarious feast ended in general music and dancing, which took place on the green in front of the cottage. In the yard behind the house a special chamber, like a tent, had been made for Anoushka, hung with pieces of striped linen. The dancing company ultimately moved from Vichareff’s house and visited various parts of the village, settling now here and now there, and gaining fresh liveliness and zest at each place where it settled. Anoushka was left alone, and shortly p. 231afterwards Dimitri returned. He went into the cottage and saw that it was empty. He then went into the yard and into the tent which had been prepared; and glimmering in the darkness he saw the tall white figure of Anoushka standing up. He called to her, but she did not answer. Being half-intoxicated he could not see clearly, and he was not sure whether it was in reality Anoushka or not that he seemed to see. He called once more, as loudly as he could, and, receiving no answer, he walked up to her and grasped her by the arm, and as he did so her whole body swung backwards and forwards as though it were dancing on air. Then in a moment he grew sober, for he realised that Anoushka had hanged herself, and he went and shouted for the neighbours. The body was cut down, and efforts were made to restore her to life, but she had already been dead about an hour, and there was nothing more to be done. The next day Dimitri’s father and Vichareff held a consultation; Vichareff even said that he considered his bargain cancelled, and Dimitri’s father, after a great deal of argument, refused to admit that this was so. Ultimately Vichareff’s p. 232cunning mind found a way out of the matter. “Why should not Dimitri,” he said, “marry Natasha my third daughter? It is true she is only fifteen, but she is a good strong girl, and will make him a good wife. And then,” he added, “we can have the wedding at once, so that the food shall not be wasted, and we shall thus be spared the burden and expense of two weddings.” So this was arranged, and the priest was informed of it. But the priest declined to celebrate the wedding, and said that such a proceeding was unchristian and inhuman; they must be married, he said, after a decent interval of time had elapsed. Vichareff and Dimitri’s father were forced to comply, for public opinion in the village was entirely on the side of the priest; but the wedding food, so far from being wasted, did double service all the same, for it served to satisfy the guests who thronged to Anoushka’s funeral; so that in these days in the village there was both dirge in marriage and mirth in funeral.