LIPOCHKA.  Let me, mamma, I’ll go quicker; look how clumsy she is!

FOMINISHNA.  Don’t you meddle where you aren’t asked!  For my part, my dear Agrafena Kondratyevna, this is what I think:  wouldn’t it be nicer to serve cordial and some herring?

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Cordial’s all right, and the samovar’s all right.  Or are you stingy with other people’s stuff?  Well, when it’s ready, have it brought here.

FOMINISHNA.  Certainly!  All right! [She goes out.

SCENE V

The same, without FOMINISHNA

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Well, haven’t you any news, Ustinya Naumovna?  This girl of mine is simply grieved to death.

LIPOCHKA.  And really, Ustinya Naumovna, you keep coming, and coming, and no good comes of it.

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  But one can’t fix things up quickly with you, my jewels.  Your daddy has his eye peeled for a rich fellow; he tells me he’ll be satisfied with any bell-boy provided he has money and asks a small enough settlement.  And your mamma also, Agrafena Kondratyevna, is always wanting her own taste suited; you must be sure to give her a merchant, with a decoration, who keeps horses, and who crosses himself in the old way[1].  You also have your own notions.  How’s a person going to please you all?

SCENE VI

The same and FOMINISHNA, who enters and places vodka and relishes on the table.

LIPOCHKA.  I won’t marry a merchant, not for anything.  I won’t!  As if I was brought up for that, and learned French[1], and to play the piano, and to dance!  No, no; get him wherever you want to, but get me an aristocrat.

[Footnote 1:  Evidently, Bolshov and his family, like many other wealthy Moscow merchants, belonged to the sect of the Old Believers, one of whose dearest tenets is that the sign of the cross should be made with two fingers instead of with three.]

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Here, you talk with her.

FOMINISHNA.  What put aristocrats into your head?  What’s the special relish in them?  They don’t even grow beards like Christians; they don’t go to the public baths, and don’t make pasties on holidays.  But, you see, even if you’re married, you’ll get sick of nothing but sauce and gravy.

LIPOCHKA.  Fominishna, you were born a peasant, and you’ll turn up your toes a peasant.  What’s your merchant to me?  What use would he be?  Has he any ambition to rise in the world?  What do I want of his mop?

FOMINISHNA.  Not a mop, but the hair that God gave him, miss, that’s it.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  See what a rough old codger your dad is; he doesn’t trim his beard; yet, somehow, you manage to kiss him.

LIPOCHKA.  Dad is one thing, but my husband is another.  But why do you insist, mamma?  I have already said that I won’t marry a merchant, and I won’t!  I’d rather die first; I’ll cry to the end of my life; if tears give out, I’ll swallow pepper.