Bougárov: Oh, little Mothers, help me to be patient. You’re a skunk and a coward, Stepan Stepanovitch. A skunk. You know you’re safe in threatening me, because I’m on my last legs with disease, and dying out, and all that, and so you think you can insult me with impunity. But when Dmitri Dmitriov thrashed you with a cane——
Rumbunkski: What’s this? What’s this lie about Dmitri Dmitriov. Oh, Little Uncles and Aunts, this is a bit too much!
Bougárov: Yes. Dmitri Dmitriov thrashed you, didn’t he? And you ran squealing about the room, trying to hide under the furniture——
Rumbunkski: Ivan Ivanovitch, how can you tell such falsehoods? I was wounded at the time and couldn’t put up a fight. But I settled him afterwards.
Bougárov: Yes. By having him waylaid and thrashed by Yats, the blacksmith.
Rumbunkski: Ivan Ivanovitch, you impugn my honour. You insult me. If you weren’t an old infirm vodka drunkard I’d smash you into a jelly. I’d stamp on your face. But please don’t imagine I shall marry your daughter now. I say, please don’t. That’s finished. You don’t marry into a family that insults you. No. Never.
Bougárov: Now, my dear Stepan Stepanovitch, do be reasonable. Anything harsh that I may have said you brought on yourself, my darling. You shouldn’t have begun about the vodka, my dearest little duck-billed platypus.
Rumbunkski: So I’m a coward, am I? Just wait. I’ll get my breath, and then you’ll see.... I’m sick. I must have a drink. (Seizes the vodka bottle.)
Bougárov (trying to take it away): Not that, my dear fellow. Give it back, I implore you.
Rumbunkski: I must have a drink, I tell you... I’m seeing stars ... bats are flying round my head ... I’m falling—(drinks from the bottle). T’shoo! Pfui!! What disgusting liquor.