“You ought to have seen how we were dressed the first Sunday after our marriage--when we left church! I’d got a long coat of fine cloth, a fur cap, with plush breeches. She had a pelisse of hareskin, quite new, and a silk kerchief on her head. One was as fine as the other. Everybody admired us. I must say I looked well, and pet Akoulka did too. One oughtn’t to boast, but one oughtn’t to sing small. I tell you people like us are not turned out by the dozen.” “Not a doubt about it.” “Just you listen, I tell you. The day after my marriage I ran off from my guests, drunk as I was, and went about the streets crying, ‘Where’s that scoundrel of a Philka Marosof? Just let him come near me, the hound, that’s all!’ I went all over the market-place yelling that out. I was as drunk as a man could be, and stand. “They went after me and caught me close to Vlassof’s place. It took three men to get me back again to the house. “Well, nothing else was spoken about all over the village. The girls said, when they met in the market-place, ‘Well, you’ve heard the news--Akoulka was all right!’ “A little while after I do come across Philka Marosof, who said to me before everybody, strangers to the place, too, ‘Sell your wife, and spend the money on drink. Jackka the soldier only married for that; he didn’t sleep one night with his wife; but he got enough to keep his skin full for three years.’ “I answered him, ‘Hound!’ “‘But,’ says he, ‘you’re an idiot! You didn’t know what you were about when you married--you were drunk. How could you tell all about it?’ “So off I went to the house, and cried out to them ‘You married me when I was drunk.’ “Akoulka’s mother tried to fasten herself on me; but I cried, ‘Mother, you don’t know about anything but money. You bring me Akoulka!’ “And didn’t I beat her! I tell you I beat her for two hours running, till I rolled on the floor myself with fatigue. She couldn’t leave her bed for three weeks.” “It’s a dead sure thing,” said Tchérévine phlegmatically; “if you don’t beat them they---- Did you find her with her lover?” “No; to tell the truth, I never actually caught her,” said Chichkoff after a pause, speaking with effort; “but I was hurt, a good deal hurt, for every one made fun of me. The cause of it all was Philka. ‘Your wife is just made for everybody to look at,’ said he.