L'arbre de Noël et le mariage

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

A Christmas Tree and a Wedding is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1848. The narrator recalls a children's New Year party given by a wealthy man, where the adults care more about business and rank than about the children. He watches Julian Mastakovich, an important guest, learn that an eleven-year-old girl has a dowry of 300,000 rubles and work out how it will grow by the time she is sixteen. Mastakovich then pushes a poor governess's son away from her. Five years later the narrator passes a church and sees the same girl marrying Mastakovich. The story is a brief, sharp look at greed and at marriage as a financial deal.