The American Bride
Petka had been for years a village tailor but he had never been able to save enough money to open a grocery-store. He hated his profession and hated to think that he could never get anything higher in the social rank of the place than what he was. While the name of a tailor sounded to him so cheap, that of a merchant flattered his ambition immensely. But there was no chance to earn the five hundred rubles, which, he thought, was necessary to change the profession.
“If I marry a poor peasant girl like Tina or Vera, I’ll never get anywhere,” soliloquized Petka and made plans for his future.
Petka knew a girl with two hundred ruble-dowry, but she was awfully homely and deaf; and he knew a widow with three hundred rubles, but she was twenty years older than himself. It was a critical situation.
One day Petka heard that the daughter of an old peddler had a dowry of five hundred rubles, exactly the amount he needed. After careful planning of the undertaking he hired a horse and drove to the lonely cottage of the rag peddler to whom he explained as clearly as he could, the purpose of his visit.
“My Liz ain’t at home,” the old man replied. “She is in that distant country called America. Good Lord, Liza is a lady of some distinction. If you should see her on the street you would never take her for my daughter. She wears patent-leather shoes, kid-gloves, corsets and such finery. Why, I suppose she has a proposal for every finger, if not more. She is some girl, I tell you.”
Petka listened with throbbing heart to the thrilling story of the old man, scratched his head and said:
“I suppose that she is employed in some high class establishment or something like that?”
“Of course, she is,” grunted the peddler proudly. “She might be employed or she might not. She has written to me that she is a lady all right.”
“What is her special occupation?”
“She is employed as the waitress in a lunch-room on the so called Second Avenue corner at New York. And her salary reaches often thirty dollars a month, which represents a value in our money of something over sixty rubles. Now that is not a joke. She has all the food and lodging free. Why, it’s a real gold-mine.”
“Has she saved already much?”
“She has five hundred dollars in the savings bank, and she has all the hats and shoes, and gloves and such stuff that would make our women faint. So you see she is the real thing.”
The happy father pulled the daughter’s letter from the bottom of his bed and reached it over to the visitor. Petka read and reread the letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting enough to the ambitious tailor. For a long time he was gazing at the picture and thinking.
“Do you think that Liza would marry a man like me? I am a well known tailor. But I have now a chance to become a merchant in our village. I need some money to make up the difference, and why not try the luck? Liza might be a well known waitress in New York, but to be a merchant’s wife is a different thing. Don’t you think she might consider my proposal seriously?”
The old peddler puffed at his pipe, walked to the window and back as if measuring the matter most seriously.
“It all depends—you know Liza is a queer girl—it all depends on how you strike her with a strong letter. You could not go to New York and make the proposal personally. It has to be done by mail. It all depends how well the letter is written, how everything is explained and how the idea of being a merchant’s wife strikes her. She is a queer girl, like all the American women are.”
“Can your Liza read and write letters?”
“Of course, she can. Liza is a lady of some standing. She can write and read like our priest. She is a highly educated girl.”
“So you think a strong letter will fix her up?”
“Exactly. And tell her everything you plan to do.”
Petka took Liza’s address, drank a glass of vodka to the success of the plan and left the old peddler still harping on his daughter. All the way home and many days afterwards Petka could think of nothing else. It seemed to him the greatest opportunity in the world to marry a girl from America. But now and then he got skeptical of his ability to get such a prize. However, he decided to try. He admitted that the whole success lay in the shaping of a strong and convincing letter and sending it to her properly. Petka knew how to write letters, but the question was would his style be impressive enough to influence a girl in America to come to Russia and marry a man whom she had never seen? However, Petka knew Platon, the village saloon-keeper, as the most gifted man for that purpose. But in a case like this he hated to take anybody into his confidence.
After arriving home Petka began to practice, writing a love letter every day. But nothing came of it. One letter was too mild, the other too extravagant. Finally he gave it up, and whispered his secret to the inn-keeper, saying:
“Now, old man, do me the great favor and I’ll fix you up when I get her dowry. I want the letter to be strong and tender at the same time.”
The inn-keeper consented. But Petka had to tell all the details and the specifications. Evan Platon admitted that it required some skill to write the letter. When he had thought the matter over carefully, made some notes and discussed the subject with Petka from every angle, he took a long sheet of paper, glued a rose in the corner and wrote as follows:
“Highly respected Mademoiselle Liza:—You have never been in our village, but it is a peach. I am the cream of the place. I have here all the girls I need. I have a house and my business. But the point is I want to open a store and need a wife with experience. We have all the money. But I need some capital to begin. As you have all that and besides, I have fallen in love with you, I lay the offer before your tender feet. Your beautiful image has haunted me day and night, and your wonderful eyes follow me in my dreams, oh, you lovely rose! If you are ready to marry a merchant like myself, do not waste any time, but come over and let’s have a marriage ceremony as the world has never seen here. However, before you do come, send me an early reply with a rosy yes. Most affectionately and respectfully, Petka Petroff.”
“It’s bully, it’s superb,” praised the tailor. “But it lacks the tender touch. It lacks that style which the city women like.”
“I put in the punch, but you can add a love poem from some school-book if you like,” protested the inn-keeper. “The city girls are funny creatures. Sometimes they like the finger, other times the fist. Who knows the taste of your Liza! The waitresses of big cities are usually broad-minded and highly educated.”
After the poem was added and another rose glued on the corner of the letter, it was mailed, registered, with a note “highly urgent,” and Petka breathed freely, like one who had survived a great ordeal.
Two months of heavy waiting passed and still no reply from Liza. Petka was like one on thorns. His strange romance was already known to his neighbors and now everybody was expecting the letter from America to furnish the most sensational news in all the world.
One afternoon as the tailor was sewing a pair of trousers the alderman of the village brought him a registered letter from America. Nearly half the village population had gathered outside, curious to hear the content of the letter. Petka took tremblingly and greatly excited the letter and rushed to Platon, the inn-keeper, all the time followed by the crowd. All the audience gathered in the inn and Platon was instructed to read it aloud to the gathering. As it was a ceremonial event of rare occasion, the inn-keeper stood up, and began in a solemn voice:
“My dear Petka: I am most happy to reply to your valued letter of the fifteenth of July, that I am glad to accept your proposal. But everything must be all right. I can marry only a man of the merchant class. I know the business and I can supply you with the capital you need. But you must remember that I do not like to be fooled and marry a man beneath me. No peasant or tailor for me. I stand here very high and cannot ruin my name. You have not told me your age, but I suppose you are not an old fogey. I will follow this letter next month, so you fix the wedding ceremony, secure all the musicians and manage the meals, drinks and such necessities. If this is not agreeable cable me. Your Liza.”
While Platon was reading the letter Petka gazed dreamily out of the window and built, not an air castle, but a large grocery store, with showy windows. It seemed as if he saw his store already opened, the people going and coming, the shelves filled with cans and packages. The sign “Merchant Petka” hung in his eyes.
The letter was like a bomb in the idyllic village. Plans were made of the wedding date and elaborate ceremony. The village Luga had never witnessed yet a marriage ceremony of this magnitude. The American bride was like a fairy princess of some ancient times. Petka was like one in a trance. But Vasska, the blacksmith, opposed to the idea of such a strange marriage, pounded his hand against the bar, exclaiming:
“Liza may be all right, but Petka should not marry her. What do we know about an American woman? What do we know about her habits? I’ve been told funny stories about such strange women. I’ve heard that nearly every American woman paints her cheeks, dyes her hair, wears false teeth, puts up bluffs and does everything to deceive a man. Spit at her capital. Besides, this American Liza is a woman whom nobody here knows.”
The blacksmith’s arguments were taken seriously by the others and a gloom came over the gathered gossips. But the inn-keeper, who was always optimistic, replied:
“American Liza must be a refined girl, and she has the money. That’s what Petka wants, and that’s what he will get. So we better let the wedding take place and see what will happen. I’ve heard that an American woman looks at the marriage as a business proposition, so we let her do what she pleases.”
“Business or no business, but we take the marriage seriously. If a man makes up his mind that he likes a woman, he must marry her, and once he has married her, no ax or pike shall separate them. No monkeying with married men or women thereafter,” argued the serious blacksmith.
Petka turned the conversation to the subject of the wedding meals and music. The whole program of the ceremony was analyzed and discussed in detail, some maintaining that the American custom was to eat with forks and knives from the plates, others that only uncooked meat was eaten and frogs served as delicacies. Finally the entertainment was arranged and the blacksmith remarked:
“All city women like fun and don’t care about serious affairs. They have the theaters and operas for amusements, so we better get a real amusement for American Liza. The best fun would be a huge hurdy-gurdy or something of that kind, an instrument with sensation. Our village violins and harps are too mild for women like that Liza.”
After discussing the matter at length, the inn-keeper agreed to take care of the entertainment. A short cable was composed and sent to Liza and the wedding date clearly explained. All the village got alive with the news that Petka was to marry an American girl by mail.
The three weeks of preparation for the wedding festival passed like a dream. The Sunday, that was to be the final date, began bright and cheerful. Petka was hustling to and fro in his newly rented house, the front of which was to be arranged for the grocery store, strutted like a big rooster preparing the affairs of his flock. At the entrance of the house was hung a big flag. Long tables were arranged in all the rooms, covered with meats, drinks and delicacies, all prepared in the village. Women were still busy baking other foods, frying meats and boiling water for tea or drinks. Everybody was busy and everything looked most solemn and impressive. The host was dressed in a picturesque new suit of clothes with a silk scarf around his neck.
While the groom was busy with preparing his heart for joy, the inn-keeper was solving the problem of the entertainment. He had constructed, what he thought to be distinctly American, a huge music-box, which was to produce the most wonderful tones ever heard. This instrument had the appearance of a big wine-cask and yet a street-organ at the same time, and was an invention of the ingenious inn-keeper. It was practically a barrel, covered with illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of the village, Ivan with his violin, Semen with his concertina and Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange instrument looked like a mysterious engine, one knew not whether to expect it to develop into a flying or moving picture machine.
At last everything was ready. The guests began to arrive and the carriage was sent to the town to bring the bride. Everybody was in festival attire and all tuned to expect the utmost excitements the village had ever had. One could see the people in groups of three or four, discussing in a high pitch of voice the wonders of the wedding festival or venturing various guesses about the American bride. The village girls, who were not a little jealous, nudged each other and exchanged meaning glances, that Petka was to get in a fix he had never been before. All were anxious to see the arrival of the two thousand-ruble bride. The blacksmith and the inn-keeper were discussing something excitedly.
“Say what you want, but this kind of matrimonial affair is the limit,” argued the blacksmith, pushing back his hat. “I can’t see how a woman comes such a distance and so many weeks to marry Petka, whom she has never seen, and how Petka gets the crazy thought to marry a city woman whom he does not know. Something is wrong somewhere. This is going to bust sooner or later.”
“My dear Vasska, it’s the education, the refinement and all that which I and you can do without,” grunted the inn-keeper.
Vasska rubbed his fists and spat vigorously. The inn-keeper tried to mollify him by saying that he should not take the matter so seriously.
Suddenly the dogs began to bark and the boys shouted:
“The American bride! Here comes the lady from abroad!”
All the guests rushed out to see her. And there she was, in a big flower-trimmed hat, with a silk parasol, and all the wonderful fineries. She looked so elegant, so superior that the village women, accustomed to their rural simplicity, felt overawed. The groom hurrying with throbbing heart to open the gates of the front-yard bowed almost to the ground to the dazzling reality of his romantic dreams. He was so confused by this apparition that he did not know whether to shout or cry.
“My gracious, how she is made up!” whispered the women.
“What a wonderful dress!” whispered the girls.
“Ain’t you Petka? You deary!” exclaimed the bride, affecting a foreign accent.
“Yes, mademoiselle, gracious yes,” stammered the groom nervously, wiping the tears of joy from his eyes.
“Gee, Petka, you are a nice boy!” gushed the bride, trying to show the quality of her refinement.
She took his both hands and whispered that he should kiss them gracefully in the American manner. Then she leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed. These American manners so embarrassed the groom that he blushed and dropped his eyes. But after all, was she not a highly educated American lady? And of course, she knew what was proper.
Though Liza looked ten years older than Petka, yet she had all the city air, the American manners and style, and most important of all, she had the capital. The first question Liza asked was whether they had a manicure, hair-dresser and boot-black in the village. No one had ever heard that such functionaries existed, so the groom explained excitedly that he would take her after the wedding to the town where she could get what she wanted. Petka carried the trunk and the five suit-cases into he house, implements which on one had ever seen. All the novelties and sensations were so great that the guests and the groom felt dazed for a moment.
“Have you got here champagne?” asked the bride, entering the house.
“We do not have such American drinks. We have kvas, beer, vodka and all the home-made cordials,” stammered the groom.
“But you must have some high-balls or cocktails at least,” went on the bride with an affected gesture.
“My gracious, there we are!” groaned the groom, and shrugged denyingly his shoulders. “We’ve never handled those things here, so you must forgive us.”
“Mademoiselle Liza, I beg your pardon,” interrupted the inn-keeper seriously. “We can arrange the balls and the tails, but you see we are simply country people and keep our bowels in order. City amusements put our stomachs in a bad fix and don’t agree with us.”
The groom felt embarrassed and did not know what to do. He bowed apologetically before his bride and tried to please her in every possible way. He imitated her gestures and manners, her shrugs and voice. He even kept his hands on his breast, as was Liza’s manner. Finally the bride asked whether there was any entertainment prepared as she had asked. The groom gave the inn-keeper a hint and the latter said that he would do his best. The three musicians were already concealed with their instruments in a big barrel and the imposing organist began his function. Strains of an unique music issued from the decorated music-box. Everybody at once rushed into the room. All stared amazed at the strange contrivance which played at one and the same time concertina, violin and drum. It was like a miracle, gripping and inspiring.
“I bet you this would interest your American audiences,” remarked the inn-keeper to the bride.
“It beats the Coney Island noise,” stammered Liza, and took up the conversation with a village woman.
All the house now was jollity. The room was bursting of the powerful music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the guests. How it happened no one knows, but one of the women had placed a bowl with hot punch on the music box. Whether through an accident, or the excitement of the organist, the vessel broke, and the punch leaked through the cracks and holes into the instrument. Suddenly the music stopped, although the conductor was still industriously turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices and sounds as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at the music-box, which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were within. Then arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with loud curses. Before anybody could realize what had happened, three angry musicians leaped from the music instrument, the steaming punch dropping from their heads.
“Good Lord, what’s this?” gasped the men while the women shrieked and fled. One of the musicians put his fist under the frightened organist and shouted:
“I’ll pay for this joke, you scoundrel!”
“Semen, don’t be a fool. I didn’t do it. By Jove, I didn’t do it,” exclaimed apologetically the organist, trembling.
“Damn, who did it?” asked the groom excited.
No one replied. And when the people realized what had happened, everybody roared. No one who glanced at the overturned music instrument and at the musicians, with their punch-dropping heads could restrain their laughter. Even the pompous bride found it so funny that she laughed with the rest.
When the excitement was over and the dessert was ready the wedding guests once more took their seats at the table. The inn-keeper, thinking that this was the moment to settle the matter of dowry, before the actual marriage act could be performed by the priest, knocked on the table for quiet. Then he arose, wiped his beard and began:
“Friends, this is a very unusual ceremony, our best known citizen and friend Petka, marrying a girl from America. Petka loves Liza, it is all right. But I know and so all our guests know, that Petka expected the bride to bring a fat dowry. Now we all would like to see the bride place her dowry upon the table before she is declared the wife of our friend, Petka. We think that in justice to the guests she ought to do that, because it was understood that she bring the money and we give her the husband. Don’t you think, friends and guests, that I am right?”
Everybody shouted “Bravo, inn-keeper,” only the groom and the bride sat silent with downcast eyes. Finally the bride glanced at Petka, pulled a bag from her dress, opened it and laid a bunch of green bills on the table. All eyes stared in awe at the money, and the guests were so silent that one could hear the beating of their hearts. Only the purring of the cats, looking curiously down from the big stove, was to be heard.
“Here is the dowry, right here. It is in American money, one thousand dollars, which is equal to two thousand rubles in your money. It’s all in cash,” exclaimed the bride proudly.
The inn-keeper took the bills, looked at them curiously, turned them over and over and shook his head. The blacksmith took one bill after the other, and did the same. For several minutes everybody was quiet. The “organist” who sat next to the inn-keeper, took the money, looked at it still more closely and then smelled it. Taking one of the bills in his hand, he rose and showed it to all the guests and asked:
“Friends, have you ever seen this kind of money?”
“No,” was the unanimous reply of the guests.
“Can any one here read American?” asked the blacksmith.
No one replied.
“The money is all right. I rushed to reach the train so I had no time to exchange it into your rubles,” replied the bride.
“It might be all right,” replied the inn-keeper, “but what do we know about the American money and its value? I’ve been told many stories of American girls boasting they have money enough to buy their husband, but heaven knows. It’s a country too far away and a language too complicated for us to understand. We like to have our stuff on the table before everything is all right.”
The bride glanced at the groom. The groom took silently her hand, assuring her that he cared nothing for what her dowry was worth, if he had only her as his wife.
“What nonsense! I came on Petka’s invitation, and I’ll stay with him, do you let the priest marry us or not. We can go both to America and marry there, but never here,” exclaimed the bride, tossing her head and snorting her indignation. As she rose, she took Petka by his hand and gave this parting thrust:
“Do you want or not, but I’ll stay with Petka here. We don’t care for your priest. I keep the American law and know what’s what.”
“Liza, Liza, listen. Don’t make a scandal like that here. Let’s better harness our horses and get to the priest as fast as we can,” shouted the excited guests, all following the couple.
[signed]Ivan Narodny