The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories

GRISHA a fat solemn little person of seven was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary and in his opinion never seen before was taking place. A big thick-set red-haired peasant with a beard and a drop of perspiration on his nose wearing a cabman's full coat was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. He was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down Grisha's back. Aksinya Stepanovna the old nurse was sitting on the dirty stool facing him and she too was drinking tea. Her face was grave though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. Pelageya the cook was busy at the stove and was apparently trying to hide her face.