OSSEP [smiling].  Hm!  Then she would be the right sort.

SALOME [draws back her hand].  You are very polite, really!  You laugh at poor me!  Well, talk as you like, but finish this affair with Nato.

OSSEP.  I have already finished it.  What will you have of me?

SALOME.  How, then?  You will not give as much as they demand.

OSSEP.  How can I give it when I have not so much?

SALOME [embracing him].  Dear Ossep, please do it.

OSSEP.  But I cannot do it.

SALOME [still pleading].  If you love me only a little bit, you will do me this favor.

OSSEP.  O woman!  Can you not understand at all what yes and no mean?  I tell you short and plain that I cannot afford to do it.  My back is too weak to lift such a burden.  A man can stretch out his feet in bed only as far as the covers reach.  Isn’t that true?  Am I stingy?  And would I be stingy toward my own child?

SALOME.  But in this case no one asks whether we have it or not.  Would it not be stupid to have such a lover for your daughter and not sacrifice everything for him?  Others, indeed, have no great wealth, and yet give and are not called crazy.

OSSEP.  Perhaps they have stolen money, since it is so easy for them to give it up.  However, what is the use of so much talk?  Take the cotton out of your ears and listen, for, I tell you, I have no money; and I repeat, I have no money.  To-day or to-morrow I expect the conclusion of important business.  If it is not completed, I am lost, body and soul.  And you stand before me and torture me by asking me to do what is impossible!

SALOME.  But why do you seem so angry?  One cannot even open one’s mouth before you.
                    [Seats herself sulking on the tachta.

OSSEP.  Yes, I am angry.  You women would exasperate an angel, let alone a man!

SALOME [reproachfully].  Just heaven! with my heart bleeding, I speak to you of our daughter and you are angry!  You, then, are her father?  Let us suppose I was dead:  would it not be your sacred duty to provide for her future?

OSSEP.  Am I not providing for her, you wicked woman?  Have I not presented three or four young persons to you as sons-in-law?  For that matter, they would still be very glad to take her.  They are young, clever, and industrious, and, moreover, persons of our condition in life.  But who can be reasonable and speak to you?  You have got it into your head that Nato’s husband shall be an official, and there you stick.  It is not your daughter’s future that makes your heart bleed, but your own ambition.

SALOME.  What more can I say to you?  Are they, then, your equals?  Who are they, properly speaking?  Who are their parents?

OSSEP [springing up].  And who are you, then?  Whose daughter, whose wife are you?  Perhaps you are descended from King Heraclius; or perhaps you are the wife of a prince!