Pod. Ah! she’s come? Send her in. (Exit Stepàn.) Yes; it’s a sort of thing—a sort of—a hard matter. (Enter Fèkla.) Ah! good-morning, Fèkla Ivànovna! Well? What have you got to say? There’s a chair; sit down and tell me about it. I want to hear all about her. What’s her name? Melània——
Fèkla. Agàfia Tikhònovna.
Pod. Yes, yes, Agàfia Tikhònovna. I suppose she’s some old maid of forty?
Fèkla. Well, then, you’re just wrong. I can tell you, if you marry her, you’ll come to thank me and praise her up every day of your life.
Pod. I suppose that’s a lie, Fèkla Ivànovna?
Fèkla. I’m old to tell lies, little father; lying’s a dog’s work.
Pod. But the dowry? What about the dowry?
Fèkla. The dowry? Well, there’s a stone house in the Moscow borough,[[2]] two-storied; it brings in such a profit that it’s a pleasure to think of: one corndealer pays seven hundred for his shop; then there are wine-vaults that attract plenty of customers; two wooden wings, one entirely wooden and the other with a stone basement: they bring in an income of four hundred roubles each. Well then, there’s a market-garden on the Vỳborgskaya[[3]] side. The year before last a merchant took it for cabbage-farming; and such a good sober fellow—never touches a drop of drink—and he’s got three sons; he has married two of them, “but the third,” says he, “is too young; he can stay in the shop and see after the business. I’m getting old,” says he, “so it’s time for my son to stay in the shop and see that the business goes on all right.”
Pod. Well, but tell me what she’s like to look at.
Fèkla. Like sugar-candy! Pink and white, like roses and cream.... Sweeter than honey; sweeter than I can say! I tell you, you’ll be over head and ears in love with her; you’ll go about to all your friends and enemies and say, “I’ve got something to thank Fèkla Ivànovna for.”