their nearest
neighbour. The young lady was only about sixteen years of age, and was
not remarkable for beauty, talent, or any other peculiarity, but she had
one very important qualification--she was the daughter of a man who
had an estate contiguous to their own, and who might give as a dowry
a certain bit of land which they had long desired to add to their own
property. The negotiations, being of a delicate nature, were entrusted
to an old lady who had a great reputation for diplomatic skill in such
matters, and she accomplished her mission with such success that in the
course of a few weeks the preliminaries were arranged and the day fixed
for the wedding. Thus Ivan Ivan'itch won his bride as easily as he had
won his tchin of "collegiate secretary."

Though the bridegroom had received rather than taken to himself a wife,
and did not imagine for a moment that he was in love, he had no reason
to regret the choice that was made for him. Maria Petrovna was exactly
suited by character and education to be the wife of a man like Ivan
Ivan'itch. She had grown up at home in the society of nurses and
servant-maids, and had never learned anything more than could be
obtained from the parish priest and from "Ma'mselle," a personage
occupying a position midway between a servant-maid and a governess.
The first events of her life were the announcement that she was to be
married and the preparations for the wedding. She still remembers the
delight which the purchase of her trousseau afforded her, and keeps in
her memory a full catalogue of the articles bought. The first years
of her married life were not very happy, for she was treated by her
mother-in-law as a naughty child who required to be frequently snubbed
and lectured; but she bore the discipline with exemplary patience, and
in due time became her own mistress and autocratic ruler in all domestic
affairs. From that time she has lived an active, uneventful life.
Between her and her husband there is as much mutual attachment as can
reasonably be expected in phlegmatic natures after half a century of
matrimony. She has always devoted her energies to satisfying his simple
material wants--of intellectual wants he has none--and securing his
comfort in every possible way. Under this fostering care he "effeminated
himself" (obabilsya), as he is wont to say. His love of shooting died
out, he cared less and less to visit his neighbours, and each successive
year he spent more and more t