RISPOLOZHENSKY.  Let’s go, Samson Silych, and you and I, for company, will just take a thimbleful.  Yes, yes, Agrafena Kondratyevna, that’s the first duty, that children should obey their parents.  We didn’t start that custom, and we shan’t see the last of it.

They all rise and go out except LIPOCHKA, PODKHALYUZIN, and AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.

LIPOCHKA.  Mamma, what does this mean?  Does he want to make a cook of me? [She weeps.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Mamma, ma’am!  Such a son-in-law as will respect you and, naturally, make your old age happy, aside from me you won’t find, ma’am.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  How are you going to do that, my dear?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Mamma, ma’am!  God has made me aspire so high, ma’am for this reason, ma’am, because the other fellow, mamma, will turn you down flat, ma’am; but I, till I land in my coffin [weeps], must have feeling, ma’am!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Ah, saints alive!  But how can this be?

BOLSHOV. [Through the door] Wife, come here!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Coming, my dear, coming!

PODKHALYUZIN.  Mamma, you remember the word I said just now!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA goes out.

SCENE V

LIPOCHKA and PODKHALYUZIN

Silence

PODKHALYUZIN.  Olimpiada Samsonovna, ma’am!  Olimpiada Samsonovna!  I suppose you abominate me?  Say only one word, ma’am!  Just let me kiss your little hand!

LIPOCHKA.  You blockhead, you ignorant lout!

PODKHALYUZIN.  But why, Olimpiada Samsonovna, do you want to insult me, ma’am?

LIPOCHKA.  I’ll tell you once, now and forever, that I won’t marry you, and
I won’t!

PODKHALYUZIN.  That’s just as you please, ma’am!  Love can’t be forced.  Only here’s what I want to announce to you, ma’am——­

LIPOCHKA.  I won’t listen to you; go away from me!  As if you were an educated gentleman!  You see that I wouldn’t marry you for anything in the world—­you ought to break off yourself!

PODKHALYUZIN.  Now, Olimpiada Samsonovna, you were pleased to say “break off.”  Only, if I should break off, what would happen then, ma’am?

LIPOCHKA.  Why, the thing that would happen would be that I’d marry an aristocrat.

PODKHALYUZIN.  An aristocrat, ma’am!  But an aristocrat won’t take you without a dowry!

LIPOCHKA.  What do you mean, without dowry?  What are you talking about?  Just take a look and see what kind of a dowry I have; it fairly hits you in the face!

PODKHALYUZIN.  Those dish-rags, ma’am?  A nobleman won’t take dish-rags.  A nobleman wants it in cash, ma’am.

LIPOCHKA.  What of it?  Dad will give cash!

PODKHALYUZIN.  All right, if he will, ma’am!  But what if he hasn’t any to give?  You don’t know about your papa’s affairs, but I know ’em mighty well; your papa’s a bankrupt, ma’am.