PODKHALYUZIN.  Well, the blue-blooded lady flew off the handle!  Oh, Lord, what an official she is!  There’s a proverb that says:  “The thunderbolt strikes, not from the clouds, but from the dung-heap.”  Good Lord!  Just look at her; what a lady!

OLIMPIADA SAMSONOVNA.  Bright idea of yours, Lazar Elizarych, ever to have anything to do with her!

PODKHALYUZIN.  Really, a very absurd woman.

OLIMPIADA SAMSONOVNA. [Glancing out of the window] I believe they’ve let daddy out of the pen; go see, Lazar Elizarych.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Well, no, ma’am; they won’t let daddy out of the pen soon, either; most likely they ordered him to the meeting of the creditors, and then he got leave to come home.  Mamma, ma’am!  Agrafena Kondratyevna!  Daddy’s coming, ma’am!

SCENE IV

The same, BOLSHOV, and AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Where is he?  Where is he?  My own children, my little doves! [Kisses are exchanged.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Daddy, how do you do, our respects!

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  My little dove, Samson Silych, my treasure!  You’ve left me an orphan in my old age!

BOLSHOV.  That’ll do, wife; stop!

OLIMPIADA SAMSONOVNA.  What’s the matter with you, ma? you’re crying over him as if he were dead!  God only knows what’s happened.

BOLSHOV.  That’s just it, daughter; God only knows; but all the same your father’s in jail.

OLIMPIADA SAMSONOVNA.  Why, daddy, there are better people than you and me there, too.

BOLSHOV.  There are, that’s so!  But how does it feel to be there?  How’d you like to go through the street with a soldier?  Oh, daughter!  You see they’ve known me here in this city for forty years; for forty years they’ve all bowed to me down to their belts, but now the street brats point their fingers at me.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  You haven’t any color at all, my darling!  You look like a ghost.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Ah, daddy, God is merciful!  When the rough places are smoothed over it’ll all be pleasant again.  Well, daddy, what do the creditors say?

BOLSHOV.  Here’s what:  they’ve agreed on the terms.  “What’s the use,” they say, “of dragging it out?  Maybe it’ll do good, maybe it won’t; but just give something in cash, and deuce take you!”

PODKHALYUZIN.  Why not give ’em something, sir!  By all means do, sir!  But do they ask much, daddy?

BOLSHOV.  They ask twenty-five kopeks.

PODKHALYUZIN.  That’s a good deal, daddy!

BOLSHOV.  Well, man, I know myself that it’s a good deal; but what’s to be done?  They won’t take less.

PODKHALYUZIN.  If they’d take ten kopeks, then it’d be all right sir.  Seven and a half for satisfaction, and two and a half for the expenses of the meeting.

BOLSHOV.  That’s the way I talked; but they won’t listen to it.