BOLSHÓV. Better shut up! If I say so, you'll marry the porter. [Silence.
USTÍNYA NAÚMOVNA. Say, now, Agraféna Kondrátyevna, if that isn't a pity!
AGRAFÉNA KONDRÁTYEVNA. I myself, the mother, am as much in the dark as a clothes-closet. And I can't understand what in the world has caused this!
FOMÍNISHNA. Lord! I'm past sixty, and how many weddings I've seen; but I've never seen anything so shameful as this.
AGRAFÉNA KONDRÁTYEVNA. What do you mean, you murderers; do you want to dishonor the girl?
BOLSHÓV. Yes, much I have to listen to your high-falutin' talk. I've decided to marry my daughter to a clerk, and I'll have my way, and don't you dare argue; I don't give a hang for anybody. Come now, we'll go take a snack; but just let them kid each other, and maybe they'll make it up somehow or other.
RISPOLÓZHENSKY. Let's go, Samsón Sílych, and you and I, for company, will just take a thimbleful. Yes, yes, Agraféna Kondrátyevna, that's the first duty, that children should obey their parents. We didn't start that custom, and we shan't see the last of it.
They all rise and go out except LÍPOCHKA, PODKHALYÚZIN, and AGRAFÉNA KONDRÁTYEVNA.
LÍPOCHKA. Mamma, what does this mean? Does he want to make a cook of me? [She weeps.
PODKHALYÚZIN. Mamma, ma'am! Such a son-in-law as will respect you and, naturally, make your old age happy, aside from me you won't find, ma'am.