PODKHALYUZIN.  Oh, I can’t do that, Samson Silych.  Just understand this much:  I’m absolutely not that kind of a man!  To anybody else, Samson Silych, of course it’s all the same; he doesn’t care whether the grass grows; but I can’t do that way, sir.  Kindly see yourself, sir, whether I’m hustling or not.  I’m simply wasting away now like some poor devil, on account of your business, sir; because I’m not that kind of a man, sir.  I’m doing all this because I feel sorry for you, and not for you so much as for your family.  You ought to realize that Agrafena Kondratyevna is a very tender lady, Olimpiada Samsonovna a young lady whose like can’t be found on earth, sir——­

BOLSHOV.  Not on earth?  Look here, brother, aren’t you hinting around a little?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Hinting, sir?  No, I didn’t mean, sir!——­

BOLSHOV.  Aha!  Brother, you’d better speak more openly.  Are you in love with
Olimpiada Samsonovna?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Why, Samson Silych, must be you want to joke me.

BOLSHOV.  Joke, fiddlesticks!  I’m asking you seriously.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Good heavens, Samson Silych, could I dare think of such a thing, sir?

BOLSHOV.  Why shouldn’t you dare?  Is she a princess or something like that?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Maybe she’s no princess; but as you’ve been my benefactor and taken the place of my own father—­But no, Samson Silych, how is it possible, sir, how can I help feeling it!

BOLSHOV.  Well, then, I suppose you don’t love her?

PODKHALYUZIN.  How can I help loving her, sir?  Good gracious, it seems as if I loved her more than anything on earth.  But no, Samson Silych, how is it possible, sir!

BOLSHOV.  You ought to have said:  “I love her, you see, more than anything on earth.”

PODKHALYUZIN.  How can I help loving her, sir?  Please consider yourself:  all day, I think, and all night, I think—­Oh, dear me, of course Olimpiada Samsonovna is a young lady whose like can’t be found on earth—­But no, that cannot be, sir.  What chance have I, sir?

BOLSHOV.  What cannot be, you poor soft-head?

PODKHALYUZIN.  How can it be possible, Samson Silych?  Knowing you, sir, as I do, like my own father, and Olimpiada Samsonovna, sir; and again, knowing myself for what I’m worth—­what chance have I with my calico snout, sir?

BOLSHOV.  Calico nothing.  Your snout’ll do!  So long as you have brains in your head—­and you don’t have to borrow any; because God has endowed you in that way.  Well, Lazar, suppose I try to make a match between you and Olimpiada Samsonovna, eh?  That indescribable beauty, eh?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Good gracious, would I dare?  It may be that Olimpiada Samsonovna won’t look kindly on me, sir!

BOLSHOV.  Nonsense!  I don’t have to dance to her piping in my old age!  She’ll marry the man I tell her to.  She’s my child:  if I want, I can eat her with my mush, or churn her into butter!  You just talk to me about it!