MADAM ULANBEKOV.  And that, again, is none of your business.  Leave that to your mother’s judgment.

LEONID.  I’m only sorry for her, mamma.

MADAM ULANBEKOV.  All very fine, my dear; but I should like to know from whom you heard that I’m going to marry NADYA.  If one of the housemaids has....

LEONID.  No, mamma, no.

MADAM ULANBEKOV.  How could you find out otherwise?  How did that get out? [To GAVRILOVNA] Find out without fail!

LEONID.  No, indeed, mamma; the man she’s going to marry told me.

MADAM ULANBEKOV.  What sort of a man?

LEONID.  I don’t know what sort!  He said he was a clerk in a government office.... a peculiar surname:  NEGLIGENTOV.  What a funny fellow he is!  He says he’s your godson, and that he’s afraid of nobody.  He’s dancing in the garden now, drunk.

MADAM ULANBEKOV.  Drunk, in my house!

LEONID.  If you want, I’ll invite him in.  Potapych, call NEGLIGENTOV!  He said that you were at his uncle’s to-day, and that you promised to give him Nadya.  Already he’s reckoning, in anticipation, how much income he will get in the court, or “savings,” as he says.  What a funny fellow!  He showed me how they taught him at school.  Do you want me to bring him in?

Enter POTAPYCH and NEGLIGENTOV.

SCENE IV

The same, NEGLIGENTOV and POTAPYCH

MADAM ULANBEKOV.  Oh, oh, how disgusting!  Don’t come near me!

NEGLIGENTOV.  I’m sent from uncle to thank you for your bounty.

LEONID.  He says, mamma, that they taught him a good deal, only it was impossible for him to learn anything.

NEGLIGENTOV.  Impossible; from my birth I had no aptitude for the sciences.  I received from fifty to a hundred birch rods nearly every day, but they didn’t quicken my understanding.

LEONID.  Oh, mamma, how amusingly he tells about the way he learned!  Here, just listen.  Well, and how did you learn Latin?

NEGLIGENTOV.  Turpissime!

MADAM ULANBEKOV. [Shrugging her shoulders] What in the world is that?

NEGLIGENTOV.  Most abominably.

LEONID.  No, wait a bit; and what did the teacher do with you?

NEGLIGENTOV. [Bursts out laughing] It made you laugh.  Once, after a cruel torture, he commanded two students to fasten me by the neck with a belt, and to lead me through the market-place as a laughing-stock.

MADAM ULANBEKOV.  How is it they took you into the civil service if you never learned anything?

NEGLIGENTOV.  Through the mediation of influential people.

LEONID.  And did they expel you from school?

NEGLIGENTOV.  They didn’t expel me; but they excluded me because I grew too much.

LEONID.  Grew too much?

NEGLIGENTOV.  Well, as I, during all this teaching and grilling, remaining in the lower grades, was getting on in years, and grew more than the other fellows of my class, of course I was excluded because I was too big.  I suffered all the more from the venality of those at the head.  Our rector liked gifts; and a week before the examinations, he sent us all to our parents for presents.  According to the number of these presents, we were promoted to the higher classes.