Once the tavern keeper stopped Vlasova on the street. He was a
dapper old man, who always wore a black silk neckerchief around his
red, flabby neck, and a thick, lilac-colored waistcoat of velvet
around his body. On his sharp, glistening nose there always sat a
pair of glasses with tortoise-shell rims, which secured him the
sobriquet of "bony eyes."
In a single breath and without awaiting an answer, he plied Vlasova
with dry, crackling words:
"How are you, Pelagueya Nilovna, how are you? How is your son?
Thinking of marrying him off, hey? He's a youth full ripe for
matrimony. The sooner a son is married off, the safer it is for his
folks. A man with a family preserves himself better both in the
spirit and the flesh. With a family he is like mushrooms in
vinegar. If I were in your place I would marry him off. Our times
require a strict watch over the animal called man; people are
beginning to live in their brains. Men have run amuck with their
thoughts, and they do things that are positively criminal. The
church of God is avoided by the young folk; they shun the public
places, and assemble in secret in out-of-the-way corners. They
speak in whispers.
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