Agàfia. I don’t know.
Arìna. I know who it is.
Agàfia. Who?
Arìna. A good, honest cloth merchant, my girl—Alexièy Dmìtrievich Starikòv.
Agàfia. That I know it isn’t; I’m positive it isn’t he.
Arìna. You can’t get out of it, Agàfia Tikhònovna; I can tell by the fair hair. There’s only one king of clubs, you see.
Agàfia. Then you’re just wrong; the king of clubs here means a nobleman—there’s a good deal of difference between a tradesman and a king of clubs.
Arìna. Ah! Agàfia Tikhònovna! you wouldn’t talk like that, my girl, if your poor papa, Tìkhon Pantlèymònovich, were alive. I remember how he used to bang his fist on the table and shout out—“I don’t care a rap for any man that’s ashamed to be a merchant; and I won’t give my daughter to an officer. Other people can do that if they’re fools enough! And my son shan’t be an officer, neither,” says he; “isn’t a merchant as good a servant of the State as any one else?” And he’d bang his fist on the table again, and, my girl, he had got a fist of his own! Indeed, if the truth must be told, your poor mother would have lived longer if he hadn’t had such a heavy fist.
Agàfia. There you see! And you think I’d put up with such a brute of a husband? I won’t marry a merchant for anything in the world!
