Literally a couple of days after the fateful appointment, the doctor scheduled the first examination. More precisely, dinner with guests whom Nadya did not know before. Mom communicated with Tatyana Dmitrievna exclusively in the courtyard of the temple, but now this acquaintance threatened to suddenly develop into a relationship.
Tatyana Dmitrievna was a sailor's widow, a portly middle-aged lady and the happy mother of a young man named Anatoly, very intelligent and promising, as his mother certified.
From the very morning, Nadya’s brothers, notified of the evening event, giggled and laughed at their sister. Misha and Ganya unanimously asserted that they would choose their own brides and would never rely on the tastes of their relatives. Nadya didn’t pay attention to them, and there was no time for it: school in the morning, then cleaning and cooking. Mom insisted that the future bride should show her kitchen talents truthfully and in all its splendor.
“Maybe she won’t like him at all,” Ganya reasonably objected, sincerely sympathizing with his sister, who was matched blindly, and who was also forced to bake cakes and meat in French for this unknown groom.
Mom ignored these attacks, considering them unworthy of responding to them.
Finally, the moment came. Nadya was so exhausted by that time that, contrary to custom, they even put on a little rouge to make her look more attractive.
But this was not necessary.
This is because the long-awaited groom himself, standing on the threshold next to the large Tatyana Dmitrievna, literally looked like a gray mouse. He is short – a head shorter than his mother and barely reaches Nadya’s height, pale and wearing thick-rimmed glasses. These glasses seemed to occupy half of his expressionless face, and in terms of the brightness of the impression they overshadowed the young man completely. Tatyana Dmitrievna, on the contrary, made a fierce impression. A tall, one might say, monumental lady, with Rubensian features. Both son and mother were dressed modestly, old-fashioned and very closed. Buttoned down to the very last button. Tolik is wearing brown trousers, a yellow shirt and a gray knitted sleeveless vest. Tatyana Dmitrievna – in a spacious gray dress with buttons on the chest. Nadya herself preferred this style of clothing, so she was not embarrassed by the “unfashionability” of the potential groom. Only one detail left a slight unpleasant aftertaste – wet spots on the sleeves of the shirt peeking out from under the armpits and the accompanying strong smell of sweat – Nadya was extremely sensitive to this. However, she decided not to draw hasty conclusions and attribute this misunderstanding to excitement before meeting.