Beastly. Why do I not see my fiancée? Where is she? The betrothal is to be this evening, so it is about time to let her know that she is to be married soon.
Mrs. Uncouth. There is time for that, brother. If we were to tell her that ahead of time, she might get it into her head that we are reporting to her as to a superior person. Although I am related to her through my husband, yet I love even strangers to obey me.
Uncouth (to Beastly). To tell the truth, we have treated Sophia like a real orphan. She was but a baby when her father died. It is now half a year since her mother, who is related to me by marriage, had an apoplectic fit——
Mrs. Uncouth (as if making the sign of the cross). The Lord be with us!
Uncouth.—which took her to the other world. Her uncle, Mr. Conservative, has gone to Siberia, and as there has been no news from him for some years we regard him as dead. Seeing that she was left alone, we took her to our village, and we watch her property like our own.
Mrs. Uncouth. What makes you talk so much to-day, husband? My brother might think that we took her to our house for our own interest.
Uncouth. How could he think so? We can’t move up Sophia’s property to ours.
Beastly. Even if her movable property has been removed, I won’t go to law for that. I don’t like the law courts, and I am afraid of them. No matter how much my neighbours have insulted me, no matter how much damage they have done me, I have never had any litigations with them. Rather than have trouble with them, I make my peasants suffer for the damages my neighbours do me, and that’s the end of it.
Uncouth. That is so, brother. The whole district says that you are a great hand at getting work out of your peasants.
Mrs. Uncouth. I wish, brother, you would teach us to do likewise, for since we have taken everything away from the peasants that they had, there is nothing left with them which we can carry off. It’s a real misfortune!