They met when they were both forty years old. The man was from a small town, lived in a dormitory. The woman had a one-room apartment. The man, when the woman invited him to live with her, gladly agreed. She was happy. She turned into a married woman. Her happiness was not overshadowed even by her husband’s drinking. Six months later, the husband informed his wife about the imminent arrival of his sisters. The sisters arrived in the evening. After a hearty dinner on the road, the woman spent the whole day at the stove, and the guests announced their plans for the next day. In the morning to go for a walk, then to the theater.
They asked to cook porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch, and they were going to have dinner in a restaurant. Having thanked the hostess for the food, they went to bed. During these few days, the guests did not wash the dishes, did not clean the beds, did not remove their things scattered here and there. Everything was done by the woman. The man explained their behavior, saying that it is not customary to interfere in the affairs of the hostess. The sisters were the “first swallow”. They were followed by other relatives of the man. One or the other visited regularly. The woman consoled herself that she would sleep and rest in the summer in a small, not noisy town. She and her husband came on vacation in the summer and stayed with her husband’s father, where he lived with his younger daughter.
Having eaten from the road, the woman leaned back and closed her eyes. Her bliss was broken by her sister-in-law, who directly said that her daughter-in-law should wash the dishes. After washing the dishes and taking a shower as soon as possible, the woman fell into bed and immediately fell asleep. Neither the light nor the dawn woke her up with the shout of her grandfather: “Get up! It’s time to cook breakfast!” The woman looked at the time – eight o’clock. “I’m going to sleep on vacation. “Don’t fry the eggs too much. After that I will instruct you where the market and shops are”, – the grandfather said. And then the woman realized what kind of vacation was waiting for her
