"The girls also have a crow to pick with you!" she said. "You'd
make enviable bridegrooms for any of them; you're all good workers,
and you don't drink--but you don't pay any attention to them.
Besides, people are saying that girls of questionable character come
to you."
"Well, of course!" exclaimed Pavel, his brow contracting in a frown
of disgust.
"In the bog everything smells of rottenness!" said the Little Russian
with a sigh. "Why don't you, mother, explain to the foolish girls
what it is to be married, so that they shouldn't be in such a hurry
to get their bones broken?"
"Oh, well," said the mother, "they see the misery in store for them,
they understand, but what can they do? They have no other choice!"
"It's a queer way they have of understanding, else they'd find a
choice," observed Pavel.
The mother looked into his austere face.
"Why don't you teach them? Why don't you invite some of the
cleverer ones?"
"That won't do!" the son replied dryly.
"Suppose we try?" said the Little Russian.
After a short silence Pavel said:
"Couples will be formed; couples will walk together; then some will
get married, and that's all."
The mother became thoughtful.
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