LEONID.  And so she treats other people’s girls the same way?

POTAPYCH.  Other people’s, too.  She extends her care to everybody.  She has such a kind heart that she worries about everybody.  She even gets angry if they do anything without her permission.  And the way she looks after her protegees is just a wonder.  She dresses them as if they were her own daughters.  Sometimes she has them eat with her; and she doesn’t make them do any work.  “Let everybody look,” says the mistress, “and see how my protegees live; I want every one to envy them,” she says.

LEONID.  Well, now, that’s fine, Potapych.

POTAPYCH.  And what a touching little sermon she reads them when they’re married!  “You,” she says, “have lived with me in wealth and luxury, and have had nothing to do; now you are marrying a poor man, and will live your life in poverty, and will work, and will do your duty.  And now forget,” she says, “how you lived here, because not for you I did all this; I was merely diverting myself, but you must never even think of such a life; always remember your insignificance, and of what station you are.”  And all this so feelingly that there are tears in her own eyes.

LEONID.  Well, now, that’s fine.

POTAPYCH.  I don’t know how to describe it, sir.  Somehow they all get tired of married life later; they mostly pine away.

LEONID.  Why do they pine away, Potapych?

POTAPYCH.  Must be they don’t like it, if they pine away.

LEONID.  That’s queer.

POTAPYCH.  The husbands mostly turn out ruffians.

LEONID.  Is that so?

POTAPYCH.  Everybody hopes to get one of our protegees, because the mistress right away becomes his patroness.  Now in the case of these she marries to government clerks, there’s a good living for the husband; because if they want to drive him out of the court, or have done so, he goes at once to our mistress with a complaint, and she’s a regular bulwark for him; she’ll bother the governor himself.  And then the government clerk can get drunk or anything else, and not be afraid of anybody, unless he is insubordinate or steals a lot....

LEONID.  But, say, Potapych, why is it that the girls run away from me?

POTAPYCH.  How can they help running?  They must run, sir!

LEONID.  Why must they?

POTAPYCH.  Hm!  Why?  Why, because, as you are still under age, the mistress wants to watch over you as she ought to; well, and she watches over them, too.

LEONID.  She watches us, ha, ha, ha!

POTAPYCH.  Yes, sir.  That’s the truth!  She was talking about that.  You’re a child, just like a dove, but, well—­the girls are foolish. [Silence] What next, sir?  It’s your mamma’s business to be strict, because she is a lady.  But why should you mind her!  You ought to act for yourself, as all young gentlemen do.  You don’t have to suffer because she’s strict.  Why should you let others get ahead of you?  That’d disgrace you.