id="id00264">LEONÍD enters.

SCENE III

The same and LEONÍD

LEONÍD. How are you, mamma?

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How are you, my dear? Where have you been?

LEONÍD. I went hunting with Potápych. I killed two ducks, mamma.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. You don't spare your mother; the idea, going hunting in your state of health! You'll fall sick again, God forbid! and then you'll simply kill me! Ah, my God, how I have suffered with that child! [She muses.

GAVRÍLOVNA. Some tea, master?

LEONÍD. No, thanks.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. [To VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA] When he was born, I was ill a very long time. Then he was always sickly, and he grew up puny. How many tears have I shed over him! Sometimes I would just look at him, and my tears would flow; no, it will never be my lot to see him in the uniform of the guardsmen! But it was most distressing of all for me when his father, owing to the boy's poor health, was unable to send him to a military school. How much it cost me to renounce the thought that he might become a soldier! For half a year I was ill. Just imagine to yourself, my dear, when he finishes his course, they will give him some rank or other, such as they give to any priest's son clerking in a government office! Isn't it awful? In the military service, especially in the cavalry, all ranks are aristocratic; one knows at once that even a junker is from the nobility. But what is a provincial secretary, or a titular councillor! Any one can be a titular councillor—even a merchant, a church-school graduate, a low-class townsman, if you please. You have only to study, then serve awhile. Why, one of the petty townsmen who is apt at learning will get a rank higher than his! That's the way of the world! That's the way of the world! Oh, dear! [She turns away with a wave of her hand] I don't like to pass judgment on anything that is instituted by higher authority, and won't permit others to do so, but, nevertheless, I don't approve of this system. I shall always say loudly that it's unjust, unjust.

LEONÍD. Why are Nádya's eyes red from crying?

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. She hasn't been flogged for a long time.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. That's none of your business, my dear. Nádya, go away, you're not needed here.

[NÁDYA goes out.]

LEONÍD. Well, I know why: you want to marry her off.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Whether I do or not, my dear, is my own business.
Furthermore, I do not like to have any one meddle in my arrangements.

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. What a clever young man you are; you know everything, you get into everything!

LEONÍD. Indeed, mamma dear, I don't mean to meddle in your arrangements.
Only he's a drunkard.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. And that, again, is none of your business. Leave that to your mother's judgment.

LEONÍD. I'm only sorry for her, mamma.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. All very fine, my dear; but I should like to know from whom you heard that I'm going to marry NÁDYA. If one of the housemaids has….

LEONÍD. No, mamma, no.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How could you find out otherwise? How did that get out? [To GAVRÍLOVNA] Find out without fail!

LEONÍD. No, indeed, mamma; the man she's going to marry told me.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What sort of a man?

LEONÍD. I don't know what sort! He said he was a clerk in a government office…. a peculiar surname: NEGLIGÉNTOV. What a funny fellow he is! He says he's your godson, and that he's afraid of nobody. He's dancing in the garden now, drunk.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Drunk, in my house!

LEONÍD. If you want, I'll invite him in. Potápych, call NEGLIGÉNTOV! He said that you were at his uncle's to-day, and that you promised to give him Nádya. Already he's reckoning, in anticipation, how much income he will get in the court, or "savings," as he says. What a funny fellow! He showed me how they taught him at school. Do you want me to bring him in?

Enter POTÁPYCH and NEGLIGÉNTOV.

SCENE IV

The same, NEGLIGÉNTOV and POTÁPYCH

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Oh, oh, how disgusting! Don't come near me!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. I'm sent from uncle to thank you for your bounty.

LEONÍD. He says, mamma, that they taught him a good deal, only it was impossible for him to learn anything.

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Impossible; from my birth I had no aptitude for the sciences. I received from fifty to a hundred birch rods nearly every day, but they didn't quicken my understanding.

LEONÍD. Oh, mamma, how amusingly he tells about the way he learned! Here, just listen. Well, and how did you learn Latin?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Turpissime!

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. [Shrugging her shoulders] What in the world is that?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Most abominably.

LEONÍD. No, wait a bit; and what did the teacher do with you?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. [Bursts out laughing] It made you laugh. Once, after a cruel torture, he commanded two students to fasten me by the neck with a belt, and to lead me through the market-place as a laughing-stock.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How is it they took you into the civil service if you never learned anything?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Through the mediation of influential people.

LEONÍD. And did they expel you from school?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. They didn't expel me; but they excluded me because I grew too much.

LEONÍD. Grew too much?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Well, as I, during all this teaching and grilling, remaining in the lower grades, was getting on in years, and grew more than the other fellows of my class, of course I was excluded because I was too big. I suffered all the more from the venality of those at the head. Our rector liked gifts; and a week before the examinations, he sent us all to our parents for presents. According to the number of these presents, we were promoted to the higher classes.

LEONÍD. What was your conduct like?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Reprehensible.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What in the world! Good heavens! Go away, my dear sir, go away!

LEONÍD. Oh, mamma, he's comical; wait a bit before driving him out. Dance,
NEGLIGÉNTOV!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. [Dances and sings]

"I shall go, shall go to mow
 Upon the meadow green."

GRÍSHA bursts out laughing.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Stop, stop! [NEGLIGÉNTOV ceases. To GRÍSHA] What are you laughing at?

GRÍSHA. The member dances very comically.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What do you mean, "member"?

GRÍSHA. Why, he himself tells us all that he is a member in the court, not a copy-clerk. And so they call him the member.

NEGLIGÉNTOV. I call myself the member, although falsely, but expressly for the respect of the court menials, and in order to escape scoffing and insult.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Be gone, and don't you ever dare to show yourself to me!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Uncle says that I fell into loose living because of my bachelor life, and that I may get mired in it unless you show me your favor.

MADAM