SCENE VII
The same and GORDÉY KÁRPYCH
GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. What's all this screeching! Bawling like so many peasants! [To MÍTYA] And you here! You're not living here in a peasant's hut! What a dram-shop! See that this sort of thing doesn't go on in the future! [Goes to the table and inspects the papers] Why are these papers all scattered about?
MÍTYA. I was looking over the accounts, sir. GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. [Takes the book by Koltsóv, and the copy-book with verses] And this, too, what's this rubbish?
MÍTYA. I was copying these poems of Koltsóv's to pass the time away, since it's a holiday. GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. You are sentimental for a poor lad!
MÍTYA. I just study for my own education, in order to understand things.
GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. Education! Do you know what education is?—And yet you keep on talking! You ought to get yourself a new coat! For when you come up-stairs to us and there are guests, it's a disgrace! What do you do with your money?
MÍTYA. I send it to my mother because she is old and has nowhere to get any.
GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. Send it to your mother! You ought to educate yourself first; God knows what your mother needs! She wasn't brought up in luxury; most likely she used to look after the cows herself.
MÍTYA. It's better that I should suffer than that my mother should be in any want at all.
GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. This is simply disgusting! If you don't know yourself how to observe decency, then sit in your hovel! If you haven't anything to wear, then don't have any fancies! You write verses, you wish to educate yourself—and you go about looking like a factory hand! Does education consist in this, in singing idiotic songs? You idiot! [Through his teeth and looking askance at MÍTYA] Fool! [Is silent] Don't you dare to show yourself in that suit up-stairs. Listen, I tell you! [To RAZLYULYÁYEV] And you too! Your father, to all appearances, rakes up money with a shovel, and you go about in this Russian smock.
RAZLYULYÁYEV. What do you say! It's new—French goods—I ordered it from Moscow—from an acquaintance—twenty rubles a yard! Do you think I ought to go about in a bob-tailed coat, like Franz Fédorych at the apothecary's! Why, they all tease him there!—the deuce of a coat! What's the use of making people laugh! GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. Much you know! It's hopeless to expect anything of you! You yourself are an idiot, and your father hasn't much more sense—he always goes about in dirty old clothes. You live like ignorant fools, and like fools you will die.
RAZLYULYÁYEV. That's enough!
GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. What?
RAZLYULYÁYEV. That's enough, I say!
GORDÉY KÁRPYCH. Clown! You don't even know how to talk straight! It's simply waste of words to speak to you—like shooting peas against a wall—to waste words on such as you, fools! [Goes out.