BOLSHOV.  Settle what?  I see plainly enough that the jig is up.  You’ll make a mistake if you don’t do me up brown!  Don’t you pay anything for me; let ’em do what they please.  Good-by, it’s time I was going.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Good-by, daddy!  God is merciful—–­you’ll get out of this somehow.

BOLSHOV.  Good-by, wife.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Good-by, Samson Silych, dear!  When’ll they let us come to see you in jail?

BOLSHOV.  Don’t know.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  Then I’ll inquire, otherwise you’ll die there without our seeing you.

BOLSHOV.  Good-by, daughter!  Good-by, Olimpiada Samsonovna!  Well, now you’re going to be rich, and live like a princess.  That means assemblies and balls—­devil’s own amusements!  But don’t you forget, Olimpiada Samsonovna, that there are cells with iron bars, and poor prisoners are sitting in them.  Don’t forget us poor prisoners.

[He goes out with AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Ah!  Olimpiada Samsonovna, ma’am!  How awkward, ma’am!  I pity your father, by heaven I pity him, ma’am!  Hadn’t I better go myself and compound with his creditors?  Don’t you think I’d better, ma’am?  Yet he himself will soften them better.  Ah!  Or shall I go?  I’ll go, ma’am!  Tishka!

OLIMPIADA SAMSONOVNA.  Do just as you please—­it’s your business.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Tishka! [TISHKA enters] Give me my old coat, the worst one there is. [TISHKA goes out] As I am, they’d think I must be rich; and in that case, there’d be no coming to terms.

SCENE V

The same, RISPOLOZHENSKY and AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  My dear Agrafena Kondratyevna, haven’t you pickled your cucumbers yet?

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA.  No, my dear.  Cucumbers now, indeed!  What do I care about them!  But have you pickled yours?

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  Certainly we have, my dear lady.  Nowadays they’re very dear; they say the frost got them.  My dear Lazar Elizarych, how do you do?  Is that vodka?  I’ll just take a thimbleful, Lazar Elizarych.

AGRAFENA KONDRATYEVNA goes out with OLIMPIADA SAMSONOVNA.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Why is it you’ve favored us with a visit, may I inquire?

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  He, he, he!—­What a joker you are, Lazar Elizarych!  Of course you know why.

PODKHALYUZIN.  And what may that be, I should like to know, sir?

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  For money, Lazar Elizarych, for money!  Anybody else might come for something different, but I always come for money!

PODKHALYUZIN.  You come mighty blamed often for money.

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  How can I help it, Lazar Elizarych, when you give me only five rubles at a time?  You see I have a family.

PODKHALYUZIN.  You couldn’t expect me to give you a hundred at a time!

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  If you’d give it to me all at once, I shouldn’t keep coming to you.