CHACHO.  The women are all so, my son.  Why do you fret yourself so much on that account?

OSSEP.  Yes, yes; you have the habit of making out that all women are alike—­all! all!  If other people break their heads against a stone, shall I do the same?  No; I do what pleases myself, and not what pleases others.

CHACHO.  Ossep, what nonsense are you talking?  As I was coming here, even, I saw a laborer’s wife so dressed up that a princess could hardly be compared with her.  She had on a lilac silk dress and a splendid shawl on her head, fine, well-fitting gloves, and in her hand she held a satin parasol.  I stood staring, open-mouthed, as she passed.  Moreover, she trailed behind her a train three yards long.  I tell you my heart was sad when I saw how she swept the street with that beautiful dress and dragged along all sorts of rubbish with it.  I really do not see why they still have street-sweepers.  It was a long time before I could turn my eyes from her, and thought to myself, Lord, one can’t tell the high from the low nowadays!  And what can one say to the others if a laborer’s wife puts on so much style?

OSSEP.  I said that very thing.  I have just spoken of it.  A new public official has just arrived.  She sees that others want to marry their daughters to him, and she runs, head first, against the wall to get ahead of them.

CHACHO.  You are really peculiar.  You have, you say, not enough money to provide a dowry for your daughter, and yet you brought her up and educated her in the fashion.  For what has she learned to play the piano, then?  Consider everything carefully.

OSSEP.  Devil take this education!  Of what good is this education if it ruins me?  Is that sort of an education for the like of us?  Ought we not to live as our fathers lived and stay in our own sphere, so that we could eat our bread with a good appetite?  What kind of a life is that of the present day?  Where is the appetizing bread of earlier times?  Everything that one eats is smeared with gall!  For what do I need a salon and a parlor, a cook and a footman?  If a man stretches himself too much in his coat the seams must burst!

CHACHO.  If you don’t want to have all those things can’t you manage the house another way?  Who is to blame for it?

OSSEP.  Have I managed it so?  I wish he may break his neck who brought it all to pass!  I haven’t done it; it came of itself, and how it happened I don’t know Oftentimes when I look back over my early days I see that things were very different twenty years ago.  It seems to me I have to live like an ambassador! [Stands up.] We are all the same, yes, we all go the same pace.  Wherever you go you find the same conditions, and no one questions whether his means permit it.  If a man who has 10,000 rubles lives so, I say nothing; but if one with an income of 1,000 rubles imitates him, then my good-nature stops.  What are the poorer people to learn from us if we give them such an example?