(KARP KÀRPYCH _and_ OULÌTA NIKÌTISHNA _sit down at table_.)
_Oulìta_ (_makes tea_). Moiré antique is all the fashion now.
_Karp._ What do you mean by moiré antique?
_Oulìta._ It’s a kind of material.
_Karp._ Well, it’s all one to me.
_Oulìta._ Yes; I was only thinking.... Supposing Serafimochka were to
marry, I really think I’d have a dress made of it.... All the ladies are
wearing it.
_Karp._ And you call yourself a lady?
_Oulìta._ Well, what else am I?
_Karp._ You might have found out by now that I can’t bear to hear you
call yourself a lady. I hate the word!
_Oulìta._ What’s the matter with the word? There’s
nothing—(_hesitates_)—nothing to be ashamed of.
_Karp._ If I don’t like it, that’s enough, I suppose!
_Oulìta._ Well, Serafimochka’s a lady, anyway.
_Karp._ Of course she is! She’s had learning; and she was married to a
gentleman. But what are you? You were always a goodwife like any other.
And now, just because your husband’s got rich, you must be a lady! Climb
on your own feet if you want to be so high!
_Oulìta._ No, no! But all the same ... you know——
_Karp._ If I tell you to hold your tongue, that’s enough. (_Silence._)
_Oulìta._ When was that battle fought?
_Karp._ What battle?
_Oulìta._ Why, lately, you know. Don’t you remember?
_Karp._ And what about it?
_Oulìta._ Such a lot of common soldiers got made into officers.
_Karp._ Why not? They weren’t women. Everybody gets a fair reward for
his services.
_Oulìta._ But, do you know, there’s a pedlar woman that comes here; and
she says that, when her nephew passes his examination, she’ll be made a
noble too.
_Karp._ When the sky rains potatoes!
_Oulìta._ But they say there are countries where they have women for
soldiers.
_Karp_ (_laughs_). Life Guards, no doubt! (_Silence._)
_Oulìta._ They say it’s sinful to drink tea.
_Karp._ What do you mean by that?
_Oulìta._ Because it comes from a heathen country.
_Karp._ Heaps of things come from heathen countries.
_Oulìta._ No; it’s quite true; now, bread grows on Christian soil, and
we eat it at the proper time; but when do we drink tea? People go to
mass, and we sit drinking tea; now its vesper-time, and here we are
drinking tea. So you see it’s a sin.
_Karp._ Well, then, drink it at the proper time.
_Oulìta._ Yes; but still——
_Karp._ Yes; but still, hold your tongue. You haven’t much of a
headpiece, but you’re very fond of talking. Just hold your tongue!
(_Silence._)
_Oulìta._ How lucky our Serafimochka is! She married a gentleman, and
that made her a lady; and now that she’s a widow, she’s still a lady.
Supposing she should marry a prince now, perhaps she’ll be a princess.
_Karp._ Only through her husband.
_Oulìta._ Well, now, if she were to marry a prince, what should I be?
Surely, something; she’s my child.
_Karp._ It’s enough to addle one’s head to talk half an hour with you! I
wanted to think about business, and here you keep worrying me with your
chattering and nonsense. Life isn’t long enough to hear all you women
have got to say; I think the quickest way will be for you to hold your
tongue! (_Meditates. Silence. Enter_ MATRYÒNA, _hurriedly_.)
_Matryòna._ Oulìta Nikìtishna! Little mother! Serafima Kàrpovna has
come.
_Oulìta._ Goodness gracious! (_Rises hastily, and exit with_ MATRYÒNA.)
_Karp._ If one didn’t manage one’s women by fear, there’d be no doing
anything with them at all. They’ve got their own business; and yet
nothing will satisfy them but to interfere in other people’s. And to see
the way a woman will get round her husband, to make him tell her all his
affairs and secrets, and work on him with her beauty and her cunning
ways, and make eyes at him; and it’s all nothing but ruin and
destruction. And if you tell them your affairs, they interfere, and lead
you astray, and make you do everything their way instead of your own.
Many men have gone to ruin through women. Of course, a young,
inexperienced man can be led away by their beauty; but when a man has
reached years of discretion, and grown serious and wise, a woman’s
beauty is nothing to him at all, it only disgusts him.