Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/192

 thee to enter the Civil Service at once; in the meanwhile, I should like thee to marry."

"Whom, my father?" inquired the astonished Aleksèy.

"Elisavéta Grigórievna Múromsky," answered Ivan Petróvitch. "What a bride! eh?"

"Father, I have not as yet thought of marriage."

"Thou hast not thought!—that is why I have thought for thee."

"As you please, but I do not like Lisa Múromsky."

"Thou wilt like her by-and-by. Habit will bring the liking with it."

"But I feel incapable of making her happy."

"Her happiness need not trouble thee. What! is this the way thou respectest thy father's wishes? Very well."

"As you please, but I do not wish to marry, and I shall not marry."

"Thou shalt marry, or I shall disinherit thee, and as to the estates, by, I shall sell or squander them away, and shall not leave thee the fraction of a kopeck. I give thee three days to think it over, and do not thou dare to come to me in the meanwhile."

Aleksèy knew that when his father took a thing into his head, not even a nail, as Tarás Skotinine has it, would drive it out; but Aleksèy took after his father, and was quite as difficult to overcome. He retired to his room and meditated upon the limits to a parent's will, upon Elisavéta Grigórievna, upon his father's solemn threat to make a beggar of him, and finally he thought