Bougárov: No, my precious, I don’t drink it any more; so you see you must be wrong, my little woodchuck.
Rumbunkski: But, Ivan Ivanovitch, my dear fellow, don’t try to stuff my head, as the French say. You must drink vodka, because there’s a bottle and glass on the table before you. I don’t say you drink to excess, my dearest little love-bird, but you must drink it sometimes—or you wouldn’t have it always on the table in front of you, and so on.
Bougárov: Stepan Stepanovitch, be careful how you contradict me, because I can’t stand it, my dear little flying-fish, and that’s a fact. You ought to know better than to come into a brother landowner’s house and accuse him of drunkenness to his face. It’s mean; it’s beastly; it’s not worthy of you, my little alligator.
Rumbunkski: I didn’t accuse you of anything of the kind. I only said——
Bougárov: Well, well, you withdraw. That’s all right. We’ll say no more about it.
Rumbunkski: But excuse me, my dear Ivan Ivanovitch, I don’t withdraw, because I have said nothing that calls for withdrawal. I didn’t make any beastly accusation and all that. All I said——
Bougárov: Oh, little God Almighty, won’t you stop talking! I can’t stand it, I tell you. My head’s bursting, and I’ve got a terrible pain in my shoulder blades. And both my ears are burning.
Rumbunkski: All I said was that vodka didn’t agree with you, and you know it doesn’t. Why everyone knows perfectly well that one night, at Roobikov’s, you——
Bougárov: Excuse me, Stepan Stepanovitch, but you’d better go. Yes, you had better go. I might do you a mischief, and so on; and I shall be sorry afterwards. That night at Roobikov’s, let me tell you, you were in a disgusting state yourself, and unfit to pass an opinion on anybody.
Rumbunkski: That’s a lie, Ivan Ivanovitch: you were always a liar and an intriguer. And as for doing me a mischief, come and try, that’s all!