Antìp. Well, then, Perepyàtkin; he’d be a fine lover. (Laughs.)
Màrya. You just pick out all the frights on purpose.
Antìp. Well, they’re all right. I think they’re very fine lovers, Màsha; first-rate lovers! (Bursts out laughing.)
Màrya (almost in tears). You’re just laughing at me!
Stepanìda. Come, leave off your foolishness! I’m talking seriously, Antìp Antìpych! What do you mean by all this rubbish? As for you, my girl, don’t be afraid; you shall have suitors enough to choose from. Bless my heart! You’re not a gipsy beggar-wench; you’re a marriageable girl with a position. Only you needn’t think I’ll let you marry a nobleman ... I won’t; so don’t imagine it.
Antìp. Why, mamma, any one would think there are no decent folks among noblemen. Dear me! there are plenty. (Laughs.)
Stepanìda. Of course there are, little father! there are decent people in every class; only everybody should keep to their own. Our grandfathers were no worse than we are, and they weren’t always trying to get in among the nobles.
Antìp. I don’t see why you shouldn’t marry her to a noble. There’s no harm in it; why should you mind?
Stepanìda. Eh! my lad! A real proper noble, that’s worth having, wouldn’t take her; he’d want at the very least a hundred thousand, or may be two or three; and as for the others, they might as well not be there at all for me. All they know how to do is to turn up their noses and give themselves airs, as much as to say, “I’m a noble, and you’re common people!” And after all, they’re nothing but a lot of dressed up beggars! Goodness gracious! As if I didn’t know! Look at Lopàtikha,[[22]] she married her girl to a noble, without asking any respectable person’s advice. I told her of it at the time. “Eh! Maxìmovna,”[[23]] said I, “‘Don’t try to drive in strange sledges.’[[24]] You’ll remember my words when it’s too late.” Well, of course she began and answered me that she wasn’t going to stand in her own child’s way, and all that. “I only want the best,” says she; “after all,” says she, “he’s a gentleman, not a shopkeeper; and maybe he’ll get on in the service and get a handle to his name.” And now, you see what’s come of it! Ah! it’s a poor tale when a frog will be a bull! There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip! Half her dowry he’s drunk away; and the rest he’s gambled away, good man! (Sighs.) Yes; I was at the wedding; such a set out as they had at the dinner, Lord save us! “Where’s the bridegroom?” said I. And what do you think, my lad? When I looked round, as it might be now, a nasty little slimy toad buttoned up into a tight jacket with the tails cut off, for all the world like a blind kitten that’s been licked down. And there he was, wriggling and twisting about, like any heathen flibberty-gibbet—Lord forgive us our sins!—as if he couldn’t find a place to sit down. Nobody’d ever have known him for a bridegroom, that they wouldn’t. He might just as well have been all hung on wires. I thought to myself when I looked at him, “You’ve made a fine choice, my friends!” (They all laugh.) But, dear heart! What am I talking about? Everybody knows that. And even if you do get one that isn’t a drunkard—of course there are decent ones here and there—he’ll only smoke you out of your own house with his tobacco; or else he’ll bring deadly sin into your house eating meat on fast days. (Spits.) Good Lord! it’s just sickening to think of.... No doubt there are good sensible people among them, that do their business properly; only all I say is, we and they don’t belong together, and we’re best apart. Now, a good, well-to-do shopkeeper, Màsha——
Antìp. Plump and fresh-coloured, you know, Màsha, like me. That’s the sort of fellow to love; not a dried-up scarecrow, eh, Màsha?