KURITSYN.  That’s no invitation, you don’t know how to do it.

KRASNOV.  Brother, don’t be quite so particular!  My wife doesn’t know your common ways, and there’s no use knowing them.  Please, without ceremony.

KURITSYN. [After drinking] You are spoiling your wife, that’s what I tell you.  Freedom spoils even a good wife.  You ought to take example from me, and teach her common sense; that would be lots better.  Ask your sister how I trained her; we had a hot time of it.

ULYANA.  Yes, you, Manuylo Kalinich, are a terrible barbarian, and a blood-sucker!  You spend your whole life bossing your wife and showing your authority.

KURITSYN.  What words are those?  Who’s talking?  What’s that you say? [Looking around] Is any stranger here?  Seems to me, my people in my own house don’t dare to speak that way!

ULYANA. [With a start] I just said that for instance, Manuylo Kalinich.  Because, sister, women like us can’t live without strict discipline.  It’s a true proverb:  “If you beat your wife, the soup tastes better.”

TATYANA.  Every one to his own taste!  You, sister, like such treatment, while I consider it the height of rudeness.

LUKERYA.  Nowadays, such peasant’s conduct is discarded everywhere; it’s getting out of fashion.

KURITSYN.  You lie!  Such treatment of women can never get out of fashion, because you can’t get along without it.  Brother, listen to what point I’ve brought Ulyana.  We used to have disputes among ourselves, among acquaintances or relatives, whose wife was more attentive; I’d bring ’em to my house, sit on the bench, and push my foot out, so—­and say to wife, “What does my foot want?” and she understood because she’d been trained.  Of course she at once fell at my feet.

ULYANA.  Yes, that’s so, that used to happen.  I can say that without shame, to everybody.

KRASNOV.  There’s nothing good in that, just swagger.

KURITSYN.  Ah, brother!  Beat your overcoat and it will be warmer; beat a wife—­she’ll be smarter.

TATYANA.  Not every wife will allow herself to be beaten, and the one that allows it, isn’t worth any other treatment.

ULYANA.  Why are you giving yourself such airs all of a sudden, sister?  Am I worse than you?  You just wait awhile, you’ll taste all that.  We can clip your wings, too.

KRASNOV.  Yes, but be careful.

ULYANA.  What are you saying?  Married a beggar and you’re putting on airs. 
Do you think that you’ve married the daughter of a distinguished landowner?

KRASNOV.  What I think—­is my business, and you can’t understand it with your wits.  You’d better keep still.

LUKERYA.  What an interesting conversation—­worth while hearing!

ULYANA.  It seems to me she doesn’t come from nobles but from government clerks.  Not a very great lady!  Goats and government clerks are the devil’s own kin.