KHALI.  What fault have you to find with my daughter?  As though yours were prettier, you insolent woman, you!

SALOME [standing up].  You are insolent!  Is it for this you called me in?  Can your daughter be compared to my Nato?  Is it my fault that your daughter has a wide mouth?

KHALI.  You have a wide mouth yourself; and your forward daughter is not a bit prettier than mine!

SALOME.  What! you say she is forward?  Everyone knows her as a modest and well-behaved girl, while everybody calls yours stupid.  Yes, that is true; and if you want to know the truth, I can tell it to you—­it is just on that account that he would not have her.

KHALI.  Oh, you witch, you!  You have caught the poor young man in your nets and deceived him.  I would like to know where you are going to get the 7,000 rubles.

SALOME.  That is our affair.  I would rather have broken my leg than to have come in here.

KHALI.  He is up to the ears in debt and is going to give such a dowry!

SALOME [coming back].  Even if we are in debt, we have robbed nobody, as you have.

KHALI [springing up].  ’Tis you who steal; you!  You are a thief!  Look out for yourself that I do not tear the veil off your head, you wicked witch, you!

SALOME [holding her veil toward her].  Try it once.  I would like to see how you begin it.  You have altogether too long a tongue, and are only the daughter-in-law of the cobbler Matus.

KHALI.  And what better are you?  You are a gardener’s daughter, you insolent thing!

SALOME.  You are insolent, yourself!  Do not think so much of yourself—­everyone knows that you have robbed the whole world, and only in that way have gotten up in the world.

KHALI.  Oh, you good-for-nothing!
                    [Throws herself on Salome and tears her veil off.

SALOME.  Oh! oh! [Gets hold of Khali’s hair.

KHALI.  Oh! oh!

SALOME.  I’ll pull all your hair out!
                    [Astonished, she holds a lock in her hand.

Enter Ossep.

OSSEP.  What do I see?

KHALI [tearing the lock from Salome’s hand].  May I be blind!
                    [Exit embarrassed.

SALOME [arranging her veil].  Oh, you monkey, you!

OSSEP.  What is the meaning of this?

SALOME.  God only knows how it came to this.  I was walking quietly in the street and she called me in and tore the veil from my head because I, as she said, took her daughter’s suitor away from her.

OSSEP.  It serves you right!  That comes from your having secrets from me and promising him 7,000 rubles instead of 6,000.

SALOME.  I would rather have broken a leg than come into this horrid house.  I did it only out of politeness.  I wish these people might lose everything they have got [pinning her veil].  At any rate, I punished her for it by pulling off her false hair.  If she tells on herself now, she may also tell about me.  She got out of the room quickly, so that no one would find out that her hair was as false as everything else.