Sophia. Read it yourself, madam: you will see that there can be nothing more harmless than that letter.
Mrs. Uncouth. “Read it yourself!” No, madam! Thank the Lord, I have not been educated that way! I may receive letters, but I order others to read them to me. (To her husband.) Read it!
Uncouth (looking at it for sometime). It’s more than I can read.
Mrs. Uncouth. I see, they have educated you like a fair maiden. Brother, be so kind as to read it.
Beastly. I? I have never read a line since I was born! God has saved me that annoyance.
Sophia. Let me read it to you.
Mrs. Uncouth. I know you will read it, but I don’t trust you. There! Mitrofán’s teacher will soon be here, so I’ll tell him——
Beastly. So you have begun to teach your son reading?
Mrs. Uncouth. Oh, my brother! He has been studying these four years. It shall not be laid to our door that we are not giving Mitrofán an education: we pay three teachers for it. The deacon from Pokróv, Carouse, comes to him for reading and writing. Arikmethick he studies with an ex-sergeant, Cipher. They both come from town, which is only two miles from us. French and all the sciences he takes from a German, Adam Adámych Bluster. He gets three hundred roubles a year. We let him eat at table with us; our peasant women wash his linen; if he has to travel anywhere, he gets our horses; at the table he always has a glass of wine, and at night a tallow candle, and Fomká fixes his wig for nothing. To tell the truth, we are satisfied with him, for he does not drive our child. I don’t see, anyway, why we should not fondle Mitrofán as long as he is a minor. He will have to suffer enough some ten years hence, when serving the Government. You know, brother, some people have luck from their birth. Take our family of Uncouths: they get all kinds of advancements while lying softly on their sides. With what is our Mitrofán worse than they? Ah, there is our dear guest.