Little Apples

THE MARRIAGE SEASON

(From the Notebook of a Marriage Broker)

Ivan Savvich Accumulatoff, provincial secretary, forty-two. Unsightly, pockmarked, voice gratingly nasal, yet all in all a fine figure of a man. Frequents all the best drawing rooms and the general’s wife is his aunt. Lives from usury and is a crook, but is otherwise a decent enough fellow. Is seeking a young lady between eighteen and twenty, from a good home, and who knows French. Good looks are a must, as is a dowry of fifteen to twenty thousand rubles.

Prepossessoff, retired officer. A drinker prone to rheumatism. Is seeking a wife who will nurse him. Not averse to a widow (though not over the age of twenty-five). Must have capital.

Proudhonoff, photographic retoucher, seeks from photograph a bride who is not mortgaged, and will bring in at least two thousand a year. He drinks (not persistently, but with gusto), has brown hair, black eyes.

Madame Gnatskaya, widow. Has two houses and eleven hundred in cash. Seeks army general (even retired, if need be). Has a cataract in her left eye, though it is barely noticeable, and speaks with a whistle. Claims that although she is a widow she is in fact a virgin, as on her wedding night her late-lamented husband was overcome by palsy.

Diphtherit Alekseyich Mademoiselloff, thespian, thirty-five, of undetermined means. Claims his father owns a distillery (most certainly a tall tale). Invariably sports a coat and tails and a white cravat, as those are the only items of clothing he owns. Left the stage due to hoarseness of voice. Seeks merchant’s daughter or widow of any shape or size, as long as she has money.

Plumpovsky, former staff captain, sentenced to exile in Siberia (Tomsk Province) for embezzlement and forgery. Wishes to make happy a poor orphan girl who would be prepared to follow him to Siberia. She must, however, be of noble lineage.