MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Tell your uncle that I shall always be your benefactress; but don't you even think about a wife! Be gone, be gone!
NEGLIGÉNTOV. I thank you for not deserting me! [To GRÍSHA] Ask the mistress to let you go to the fair, and catch up with me! [He goes out.
SCENE V
The same, except NEGLIGÉNTOV
MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How easy it is to be mistaken in people! You take pains for them, work your head off, and they don't even feel it. I should have been glad to establish that boy in life, but he crawls into the house drunk. Now, if he's a prey to that weakness, he ought, at least, to try to hide it from me. Let him drink where he will, but don't let me see it! I should know, at least, that he respected me. What clownishness! What impudence! Whom will he be afraid of, pray tell, if not of me?
LEONÍD. Oh, what a comical fellow! Don't be angry with me, mamma. When I found out that you wanted to marry NÁDYA to him, I felt sorry for her. And you're so good to everybody! [He kisses her hand] I didn't want you to do anything unjust.
MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Such people fairly drive you into sin. [Kissing him] You have a beautiful soul, my dear! [To VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA] Indeed, I have always thought that God himself sometimes speaks with the lips of babes. Líza! Go tell Nadezhda not to cry, that I have turned out NEGLIGÉNTOV.
LÍZA. Yes, ma'am. [She goes out.
GRÍSHA. [Approaches, swaggering, and stops in a free and easy pose]
Mistress!
MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What's the matter with you?