Karp. Only through her husband.
Oulìta. Well, now, if she were to marry a prince, what should I be? Surely, something; she’s my child.
Karp. It’s enough to addle one’s head to talk half an hour with you! I wanted to think about business, and here you keep worrying me with your chattering and nonsense. Life isn’t long enough to hear all you women have got to say; I think the quickest way will be for you to hold your tongue! (Meditates. Silence. Enter Matryòna, hurriedly.)
Matryòna. Oulìta Nikìtishna! Little mother! Serafima Kàrpovna has come.
Oulìta. Goodness gracious! (Rises hastily, and exit with Matryòna.)
Karp. If one didn’t manage one’s women by fear, there’d be no doing anything with them at all. They’ve got their own business; and yet nothing will satisfy them but to interfere in other people’s. And to see the way a woman will get round her husband, to make him tell her all his affairs and secrets, and work on him with her beauty and her cunning ways, and make eyes at him; and it’s all nothing but ruin and destruction. And if you tell them your affairs, they interfere, and lead you astray, and make you do everything their way instead of your own. Many men have gone to ruin through women. Of course, a young, inexperienced man can be led away by their beauty; but when a man has reached years of discretion, and grown serious and wise, a woman’s beauty is nothing to him at all, it only disgusts him.
Scene III. In the Courtyard.
(Enter First and Second Coachman.)
Second C. Why, there’s no comparing it; you’re a thousand times better off. If you knew what my mistress is like! She’s more of a Jew than a lady; she measures the very oats out herself. (Exeunt into stable. Enter on gallery Oulìta, Serafìma, and Matryòna.)