LIPOCHKA.  I’ve reason enough, because you don’t desire my happiness.  You and pa are only good for picking quarrels and tyrannizing!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  You can think what you please.  The Lord is your judge!  But nobody feels the anxiety for her child that the mother who bore her does!  Here you’re always posing and kicking up all kinds of nonsense, while your father and I worry day and night about how to find you a good man, and establish you quickly.

LIPOCHKA.  Yes, easy for you to talk; but just let me ask, what good does that do me, if you please?

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  As if you thought I wasn’t sorry for you!  But what can I do?  Have a mite of patience, even if you have been waiting a few years.  It’s impossible to find a husband for you in a second; it’s only cats that catch mice in a jiffy.

LIPOCHKA.  What have I got to do with your cats!  It’s a husband I want.  What’s the use!  I’m ashamed to meet my acquaintances; in all Moscow we weren’t able to choose a husband; other girls kept having all the luck.  Wouldn’t it make anybody sick?  All my friends were married long ago, and here I am like a kind of orphan!  We found one man, and turned him down.  Now, look here:  find me a husband, and find him quick!...  I tell you in advance, look me up a husband right off, or it’ll be so much the worse for you:  purposely, just to spite you, I’ll secretly scare up an adorer; I’ll run away with a hussar, and we’ll get married on the quiet.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  What!  What!  You lewd creature!  Who drummed such nastiness into your head?  Merciful Lord, I can’t get my breath!  Ah, you dirty hussy!  Well, there’s nothing to be done.  It’s evident.  I’ll have to call your father.

LIPOCHKA.  All you ever say is “father, father!” You have a lot to say when he’s around, but just try it when you’re by yourself!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  So you think I’m a fool, do you?  What kind of hussars do you know, you brazen-faced creature?  Phoo!  Diabolical idea!  Perhaps you think I’m not able to make you mind?  Tell me, you shameless-eyed girl, where did you get that spiteful look?  What, you want to be sharper than your mother!  It won’t take me long, I tell you, to send you into the kitchen to boil the kettles.  Shame, shame on you!  Ah!  Ah!  My holy saints!  I’ll make you a hempen wedding-dress, and pull it on over your head directly.  I’ll make you live with the pigs, instead of your parents!

LIPOCHKA.  How’s that?  Will I allow anybody to boss me about?  The idea!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Shut up, shut up, you babbling Bessie!  Give in to your mother!  What obstinate daring!  Just peep another word and I’ll stop your mouth with a potato.  A beautiful consolation the Lord has sent me in you!  Impudent slut!  You’re a miserable tomboy and you haven’t a womanly thought in your head!  You’re ready, I suppose, to jump on horseback and go off like a soldier!