Father-in-law

Переклад англійською Андрій Євса
Translated by Andrey Yevsa

Vasilko’s* pompous manner to walk and to examine everyone severely with his large, gray eyes under his bushy eyebrows always raised a laugh from the  adults.
 If one does not see him but hears his voice when he heads cows off the buckwheat field, he can think, that it is a voice of the old, bearded Nikita-cowherd, but not of a small boy to whom the trousers have been sewn only this spring.
 It is usually very amazing when Vasilko sometimes begins "to be old" at home. 
If somebody, even a guest, crumbles some bread or pours out borsch from a spoon at the dinner table, Vasilko calls: «Why is it necessary to crumble and to spill?!» If somebody forgets to take off a cap, he at once climbs on the bench, sneaks up to him, takes off his cap, points with his finger at the icons in the corner and says severely: “See what is there!”
Being unsatisfied with something he climbs onto the stove**, covers himself with a sackcloth and begins to reprimand others for all the domestic disorders: “this is bad, this is not like what other people do…!”
Father used to say: “You are very strict, Vasil. Sometime you will be a good petty-officer!..”
In the family Vasilko was jokingly called: “father-in-law”.
The “father-in-law”, however, sometimes liked to sit from morning to lunch time under a stove, playing with the toys, hidden  in some corner there.
Mother used to say: “You would be better to take an ABC-book and study the alphabet. It is time to wed you but you are playing there with toys.”
“Wed me, if it is time!” was his answer from under the stove.
“Well, well!” Mother laughed, surprised. “And don’t you want to go to school?”
“What is a school, will it give me some bread?” asked Vasilko in an “old” voice, playing in his corner.
One evening all of his family were at home: his father, two elder brothers, and his sister. After supper his father sat down at the edge of the table, leaned his head on his hand and, looking at mother and the children, said:
“I do not intend to work any more: my feet are like wood, my back and my hands ache, I am becoming old!.. I dare say, it is time to marry off one of the boys and to hand over the domestic economy to him. Let the youths manage, and mother and I will have a rest.”
Little Vasil sits near the window, pretends that he is looking at the silver horns of the moon above the willows, and listens attentively to the paternal speach.
“And which one of the three do we have to marry off?” Father thinks aloud. “Mykola will have to join the army in Autumn. Petro hasn’t yet finished his studies. Vasil? He is more inclined to the economy, than to studies.
Vasilko looked sullenly at his father and again started to look through the window, as if this didn’t concern him...
“What will you say, Vasil?” Father asked him. “Will we wed you or, maybe, we will wait till Petro finishes his school?”
“Oh!.. ”Vasilko began to laugh, bashfully covering his face with his sleeve. He liked the paternal conversation but, however, was not certain that father was not bantering.
“There is nothing to laugh at!” Father said stately. “Tell us! If to marry, we will marry you off, if to wait, we will wait.” 
“Tell us, Vasil! Maybe we may ask some girl to-day to marry you,” mother said.
Vassylko looked closely at everybody, nobody was laughing.
"Why would I not marry indeed?” he thought to himself. “It would be good to have a woman: she will cook, wash my shirts, and I, lying on a stove, will call: "Bring me some embers to light a pipe!"
 “So, what is your answer?” Mother asked. “Do you want to get married?”
 Vasilko wiped his nose with his sleeve, turned a bit red, and, covering his mouth with his hand, said:
 “I…do!..
 “It’s just as well,” father said. “Now, we need only to choose a fiancee for you. Or, maybe, you have somebody in view, don’t you?”
Actually, Vasilko had one in mind. She was dark-browed Hanna. He liked her since she once helped him when he, coming home from church, had been stuck in the mud. At first Hanna rescued him, then his knee-boots, wiped his nose and tear-stained face dry and kissed him in the end.
“I want Hanna,” said Vasilko more boldly.
          “Hanna. Let it be. Chose Hanna,” said father. “You should know better. To tell the truth, Hanna is a nice girl: she is beautiful, healthy and belongs to a good family, and... her portion may be about five hundred… Lord help you, Vasil!”
Vasilko knew that it was time to thank his father but, for some reason, he was quite embarrassed and only sniffed.
“Well then, let us not waste time,” said father again, “let’s dress ourselves and go to make a proposal to Hanna! Give him Petro’s svyta***!” said he to mother.
Mother pulled off the svyta and a red plated belt out of the peg for clothes. Vasilko got down from the plank bed, put a finger into his mouth and stood in the middle of the room. No wonder that he was a bit ashamed, it was new to him. Mother dressed him, girdled him up with a belt, put father’s pipe into the svyta’s pocket and stuck a bunch of tobacco under the belt. Father took a loaf of bread from the table and put it under Vasilko’s arm. He hardly got a hold of the loaf with both of his hands.
“Now, son, we will pray to God and go. But I have to ask you something. Will you be going instead of me to the society to pay taxes?”
Vasilko would gladly go to the society but he did not like to pay taxes.
“And where will I get the money?” he asked.
“Where will you get the money?” asked astonished father. “You will earn it! You will plough, mow… You will be our proprietor. We will be all obedient to you.”
«B-ut!” – started Vasilko uncertainly.
“You will have to do everything: to provide your wife with food and clothes, to wed your sister, and to look after your mother and me as long as we live. Will you look after us?” father asked again.
Vasilko went hot and cold all over, his ears reddened. He was not glad now that he had found himself in such a plight.
 “I don’t want…,”  he said and began to sob. His eyes were at once full of tears.
 “Well, son, and what about us?” Father said quietly. “Who will take care of  me and your mother and feed us? When we were healthy we worked, fed and taught all of you. And now, when we are old, will you turn us out of the house to be beggars?”
For some reason Vasilko became frightened.and felt a sudden tender pity for his parents...
The bread fell out of his hands, and he began to cry bitterly:
“I …am still young!..”
All were unable to control themselves any longer and burst out laughing merrily.
Vasilko glanced around and understood that it was a joke. He began gladly to laugh too. Then, embarrassed, he closed his face with hands, took off Petro’s svyta and climbed on the stove!
From then on he was often asked:
          “So, Vasilko, will you get married soon?”
          Vasilko would keep silence a bit, and then would say sedately:
          “To get married is such a trouble, let Deuce take it!
 
               

    *Vasilko is a pet name of Basil (Vasil)
    **stove.  Even now in the Ukrainian villages sometimes there are still   constructions of brick for cooking or heating by burning wood, and straw… Above the place for the fire (the hearthstone) there is a flat top, a part of the stove to sleep on, to dry grain and so on. Below the place for the fire there is a place for oven prongs (for placing pots into and out) of  the stove).
    ***Svyta is a very old type of the Ukrainian overcoat made of homemade coarse broad cloth.