AKÍM [excited] Past! No, lad, it's not past. Sin, I mean, fastens on to sin—drags sin after it, and you've stuck fast, Nikíta, fast in sin! Stuck fast in sin! I see you're fast in sin. Stuck fast, sunk in sin, I mean!
NIKÍTA. Sit down and drink your tea, and have done with it!
AKÍM. I can't, I mean can't what d'ye call it, can't drink tea. Because of your filth, I mean; I feel what d'ye call it, I feel sick, very sick! I can't what d'ye call it, I can't drink tea with you.
NIKÍTA. Eh! There he goes rambling! Come to the table.
AKÍM. You're in your riches same as in a net—you're in a net, I mean. Ah, Nikíta, it's the soul that God needs!
NIKÍTA. Now really, what right have you to reprove me in my own house? Why do you keep on at me? Am I a child that you can pull by the hair? Nowadays those things have been dropped!
AKÍM. That's true. I have heard that nowadays, what d'ye call it, that nowadays children pull their fathers' beards, I mean! But that's ruin, that's ruin, I mean!
NIKÍTA [angrily] We are living without help from you, and it's you who came to us with your wants!
AKÍM. The money? There's your money! I'll go begging, begging I mean, before I'll take it, I mean.
NIKÍTA. That's enough! Why be angry and upset the whole company! [Holds him by the arm].