At dinner, when Pelageya was handing the dishes, everyone looked into her face and teased her about the cabman.  She turned fearfully red, and went off into a forced giggle.

“It must be shameful to get married,” thought Grisha.  “Terribly shameful.”

All the dishes were too salt, and blood oozed from the half-raw chickens, and, to cap it all, plates and knives kept dropping out of Pelageya’s hands during dinner, as though from a shelf that had given way; but no one said a word of blame to her, as they all understood the state of her feelings.  Only once papa flicked his table-napkin angrily and said to mamma: 

“What do you want to be getting them all married for?  What business is it of yours?  Let them get married of themselves if they want to.”

After dinner, neighbouring cooks and maidservants kept flitting into the kitchen, and there was the sound of whispering till late evening.  How they had scented out the matchmaking, God knows.  When Grisha woke in the night he heard his nurse and the cook whispering together in the nursery.  Nurse was talking persuasively, while the cook alternately sobbed and giggled.  When he fell asleep after this, Grisha dreamed of Pelageya being carried off by Tchernomor and a witch.

Next day there was a calm.  The life of the kitchen went on its accustomed way as though the cabman did not exist.  Only from time to time nurse put on her new shawl, assumed a solemn and austere air, and went off somewhere for an hour or two, obviously to conduct negotiations. . . .  Pelageya did not see the cabman, and when his name was mentioned she flushed up and cried: 

“May he be thrice damned!  As though I should be thinking of him!  Tfoo!”

In the evening mamma went into the kitchen, while nurse and Pelageya were zealously mincing something, and said: 

“You can marry him, of course—­that’s your business—­but I must tell you, Pelageya, that he cannot live here. . . .  You know I don’t like to have anyone sitting in the kitchen.  Mind now, remember . . . .  And I can’t let you sleep out.”

“Goodness knows!  What an idea, mistress!” shrieked the cook.  “Why do you keep throwing him up at me?  Plague take him!  He’s a regular curse, confound him! . . .”

Glancing one Sunday morning into the kitchen, Grisha was struck dumb with amazement.  The kitchen was crammed full of people.  Here were cooks from the whole courtyard, the porter, two policemen, a non-commissioned officer with good-conduct stripes, and the boy Filka. . . .  This Filka was generally hanging about the laundry playing with the dogs; now he was combed and washed, and was holding an ikon in a tinfoil setting.  Pelageya was standing in the middle of the kitchen in a new cotton dress, with a flower on her head.  Beside her stood the cabman.  The happy pair were red in the face and perspiring and blinking with embarrassment.

“Well . . .  I fancy it is time,” said the non-commissioned officer, after a prolonged silence.