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 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?
OSSEPO 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? 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 God 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 God, I don't know what is.
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 glasses, 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. God 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 God'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.
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!
[Goes toward the ante-room to the right and meets Nato with four sheets of music in her hand.
