OSSEP. Have you ever seen anything like it, aunt? I ask you, aunt, does that seem right?
CHACHO. My son, who takes a thing like that to heart?
OSSEP. She is obstinate as a mule. Say, does she not deserve to be soundly beaten, now?
CHACHO. It only needed this—that you should say such a thing! As many years as you have lived together you have never harmed a hair of her head; then all of a sudden you begin to talk like this. Is that generous?
OSSEP. O aunt! I have had enough of it all. Were another man in my place, he would have had a separation long ago. [
Sits down
.] If she sees on anyone a new dress that pleases her, I must buy one like it for her; if a thing pleases her anywhere in a house, she wants one in her house; and if I don't get it for her she loses her senses. It is, for all the world, as though she belonged to the monkey tribe. Can a man endure it any longer?
CHACHO. The women are all so, my son. Why do you fret yourself so much on that account?
OSSEP. Yes, yes; you have the habit of making out that all women are alike—all! all! If other people break their heads against a stone, shall I do the same? No; I do what pleases myself, and not what pleases others.
CHACHO. Ossep, what nonsense are you talking? As I was coming here, even, I saw a laborer's wife so dressed up that a princess could hardly be compared with her. She had on a lilac silk dress and a splendid shawl on her head, fine, well-fitting gloves, and in her hand she held a satin parasol. I stood staring, open-mouthed, as she passed. Moreover, she trailed behind her a train three yards long. I tell you my heart was sad when I saw how she swept the street with that beautiful dress and dragged along all sorts of rubbish with it. I really do not see why they still have street-sweepers. It was a long time before I could turn my eyes from her, and thought to myself, Lord, one can't tell the high from the low nowadays! And what can one say to the others if a laborer's wife puts on so much style?