CHACHO. Dear Ossep, why are you so obstinate?

OSSEP. I am not obstinate; but you two are. Yes, you are obstinate, and will pay no attention at all to what I say.

CHACHO. Since when have you become such a n.i.g.g.ard? You should have economized when you gave the sasandars[41] something like ten rubles for a fee.

[41] Musicians.

OSSEP. Those times have pa.s.sed and won't come back again, dear aunt. At that time I was able to do it; but not now. Trade is dull and my business is going badly.

CHACHO. Possibly with your enemies, dear son; but there is nothing the matter with your business.

OSSEP [_aside_]. There you have it! They insist that I let them inspect my books. [_Aloud_.] Do you know, what, aunt? What I say I first consider, for I do not like to speak to no purpose. If that young man pleases you and my daughter, and you will have him at all hazards, I have nothing against it. So therefore go to him; and if you can settle the affair with 6,000 rubles, do it. I will gladly make the best of it; but mind, this is my last word, and if you hang me up by the feet, I will not add a single shilling.

CHACHO. What has come over you, Ossep? If you are willing to give 6,000 rubles, you will surely not let the whole thing go to pieces for the sake of 500 or 1,000 more?

OSSEP. Do you know what, aunt? Even if a voice from heaven were to demand it of me, that is my last word. Even if you flayed me alive, I would not give another shilling.

CHACHO. Do not excite yourself, dear son. Let us first see. Perhaps it can be settled with 6,000 rubles.

OSSEP. Yes, to that even I say yes.

SALOME. If a man can give 6,000, he can surely give 1,000 or 2,000 more.

Why do you fret yourself unnecessarily?

OSSEP [_aroused_]. G.o.d deliver me from the hands of these women! They say that one woman can get the best of two men; and here I am alone and fallen into the hands of two of you. Where, then, have you discovered this confounded fellow of a son-in-law? That comes of his visits. What has he to do with us? We are entirely different kind of people. [_To Salome_:] He is neither your brother nor your cousin; why, then, does he come running into our house? I believe he has been here as many as three times. I decline once and for all his visits. May his foot never cross my threshold!

CHACHO. Do not get excited, my son. Do not be vexed.

OSSEP. Now, aunt, you come so seldom to our house, and just to-day you happen in: how does that come?

CHACHO. If you are so vexed about my visit, go down in the cellar and cool yourself off a little.

OSSEP. I am a man; do you understand me? If I tell you that I can give no more, you should believe me.

CHACHO. We believe it, truly; we believe it, but we must say to you, nevertheless, that the dowry that a man gives his daughter means a great deal. It does not mean buying a house, when it is laudable to be economical. No; where the dowry is concerned, a man must think neither of his pocket nor of his money-box. You were acquainted with Jegor? Did he not sell his last house and afterward lived like a beggar to give his daughter a proper dowry? When he died, was there not money for his burial? That you know yourself very well. Are you any poorer than he, that you grumble like a bear about 2,000 rubles?

OSSEP. O great Heavens! they will bring me to despair yet. Isn't this a punishment of Providence, to bring up a daughter, spend a lot of money on her education, and when you have done everything, then hang a bag of gold around her neck, so that she may find someone who is kind enough to take her home with him? A pretty custom!

SALOME. Against the manners and customs of the world you can do nothing, however.

OSSEP. The devil take your manners and customs! If you hold so fast to old ways, then stick to all of them. Is it an old custom to wear, instead of Georgian shoes, little boots--and with men's heels, too? And that a girl should be ashamed to go with her own people and should walk around on the arm of a strange young man: is that also one of the good old customs? Where can we find anything of the good old manners and customs of our fathers, in the living or eating or housekeeping, or in the clothing, or in b.a.l.l.s and society? What! was it so in old times? Do you still talk about old manners and customs? If once we begin to live after the new fashion, let us follow it in all things. Why do we still need to have bedclothes for twenty-four beds for guests? Why do we use the old cupboard and cake-oven and sofa-cover? Why does one not visit a mother with a young baby and stay whole months with them? Why does one invite 100 persons to a wedding and give funeral feasts and let eighty women mourners come and howl like so many dervishes? And what is that yonder [_points to the furniture_]? That one is old-fashioned and the others new-fashioned. If we can have one kind, why do we use the other? [_Silent awhile_.

SALOME. Well, well! don't be angry! So you will give 6,000 rubles--you have promised it. What is lacking I will procure.

OSSEP. You will procure it? Where, then, will you get it? Not some of your own dowry, I hope.

SALOME. I had no dowry. Why do you tease me with that? No, everything I have I will sell or p.a.w.n. The pearls, my gold ornaments, I will take off of my _katiba_. The gold b.u.t.tons can be melted. My brooch and my necklace, with twelve strings of pearls, I will also sell; and, if it is necessary, even the gold pins from my velvet cap must go. Let it all go!

I will sacrifice everything for my Nato. I would give my head to keep the young man from slipping through my hands.

[_Exit hastily at left_.

SCENE VI

_Ossep. Chacho_.

OSSEP. Have you ever seen anything like it, aunt? I ask you, aunt, does that seem right?

CHACHO. My son, who takes a thing like that to heart?

OSSEP. She is obstinate as a mule. Say, does she not deserve to be soundly beaten, now?

CHACHO. It only needed this--that you should say such a thing! As many years as you have lived together you have never harmed a hair of her head; then all of a sudden you begin to talk like this. Is that generous?

OSSEP. O aunt! I have had enough of it all. Were another man in my place, he would have had a separation long ago. [_Sits down_.] If she sees on anyone a new dress that pleases her, I must buy one like it for her; if a thing pleases her anywhere in a house, she wants one in her house; and if I don't get it for her she loses her senses. It is, for all the world, as though she belonged to the monkey tribe. Can a man endure it any longer?

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 pa.s.sed. 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 appet.i.te? 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 pa.s.s! 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 amba.s.sador! [_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? Weren't the old times much better? In a single _darbas_[42] we all lived together; three or four brothers and their families. We saved in light and heat, and the blessing of G.o.d was with us. Now in that respect it is wholly different.

If one brother spends fifty rubles, the other spends double the sum, so as not to be behind him. And what kind of brothers are there now, as a rule? And what kind of sisters and fathers and mothers? If you were to chain them together you could not hold them together a week at a time.

If it is not a punishment from G.o.d, I don't know what is.

[42] Hall.

CHACHO. My dear Ossep, why do you revive those old memories? It gives me the heartache to recall those old times. I remember very well how it was. In the room stood a long broad sofa that was covered with a carpet.

When evening came there would be a fire-pan lighted in the middle of the room and we children would sit around it That was our chandelier. Then a blue table-cloth was spread on the sofa and something to eat, and everything that tasted good in those days was placed on it. Then we sat around it, happy as could be: grandfather, father, uncle, aunt, brothers, and sisters. The wine pitcher poured out sparkling wine into the gla.s.ses, and it wandered from one end of the table to the other.

Many times there were twenty of us. Now if for any reason five persons come together in a room one is likely to be suffocated. [_Points to the ceiling_.] With us there was an opening for smoke in the ceiling that was worth twenty windows. When it became bright in the morning the daylight pressed in on us, and when it grew dark the twilight came in there, and the stars glimmered through. Then we spread our bed-things out, and we went to sleep together with play and frolic. We had a kettle and a roasting-spit in the house, and also a pot-ladle and strainer, and the men brought in the stock of provisions in bags. Of the things they brought, one thing was as appetizing as the other. Now, it seems the cooks and servants eat all the best bits. G.o.d preserve me from them! Our homes are ruined by the new ways!

OSSEP. Do you know what, aunt? I wager it will not be long before the whole city is bankrupt. On one side extravagance and the new mode of life will be to blame, and on the other our stupidity. Can we go on living so? It is G.o.d's punishment, and nothing more. You will scarcely believe it when I tell you that I pay out ten rubles every month for pastry for the children alone.

CHACHO. No! Reduce your expenses a little, my son. Retrench!

OSSEP. That is easily said. Retrench, is it? Well, come over here and do it. I would like to see once how you would begin. Listen, now! Lately I bought a pair of children's shoes at the bazaar for three abaces.[43] The lad threw them to the ceiling. "I want boots at two and a half rubles,"

said the six-year-old rascal. He was ready to burst out crying. What could I do but buy new ones? If others would do the same I could let the youngster run in cheap boots. How can one retrench here? Twenty years, already, I have struggled and see no way out. To-day or to-morrow my head will burst, or I may beat it to pieces against a stone wall. Isn't it an effort at retrenchment when I say that I cannot afford it? but with whom am I to speak here? Does anyone understand me? Yes, reduce your expenses!