LUKINISHNA. Why shop-soiled? For you, dearie, a shop-soiled one won’t do. With your nobleness and all your, pardon the expression, virtues you could marry anybody, and with money . . .
CAPTAIN. I don’t need money. I won’t stoop to do such a dirty deed as marry for money. I have my own money and I don’t want to eat my wife’s bread, she should eat mine. If you pick a poor girl, she will have feelings, be understanding . . . I’m not so selfish that for self-interest I’d . . .
LUKINISHNA. That’s the truth, dearie . . . A poor creature will be more beautiful than a rich girl . . .
CAPTAIN. And I don’t need beauty, either. What good is it? You don’t drink water from a face. Beauty should be not in one’s person, but in one’s soul . . . What I want is goodness, meekness, a sort of innocence . . . I want my wife to respect me, worship me . . .
LUKINISHNA. Hm . . . How could she not worship you, if you are her lawful husband? Ain’t she got no eddication or what?
CAPTAIN. Hold on, don’t interrupt. I don’t need education either. Nowadays you can’t do without education, of course, but there are all sorts of educations. Granted, if your wife’s got French and German and different lingoes it’s very nice: but what’s the good of it, if she doesn’t know how to, say, sew on your buttons? I’m of the educated class, welcome everywhere, I can talk to Prince Kanitelin4 the way I’m talking to you now, but my nature is a simple one. I need a simple girl. I don’t need brains. The man should have all the brains, but a female creature can get on without brains.
LUKINISHNA. You’re so right, dearie. Nowdays even the papers write about the brainy ones that they won’t do at all.
CAPTAIN. A fool will love and worship and appreciate my status as a man. She will walk in fear. Whereas a brainy one will eat your bread but won’t appreciate whose bread it is. Go find me a fool . . . Hear me aright: a fool. Have you got anything like that in stock?
LUKINISHNA. I got all sorts in stock (gives it some thought). Which one’s for you? Lots of fools, because even the brainy ones are fools . . . Each of these fools has got her own brains . . . You want a full-fledged fool? (Thinks.) I got this one fool of a girl, but I don’t know if you’d like her . . . Of merchant stock she comes and with a dowry of about five thousand . . . Personally it’s not that she’s not beautiful, but just—neither this nor that . . . a bit scrawny, a bit scraggly . . . Affectionate, refined . . . Loads of loving kindness! She’d give the shirt off her back if anybody asked . . . Oh, and meek . . . Her mother could yank her around by the hair, and you wouldn’t hear a peep out of her — not a blessed word! And she minds her parents, she can be took to church, and when it comes to keeping house . . . But as to what’s up here (puts a finger to her forehead) . . . Don’t blame me, sinner that I am, for speaking my mind, but, to tell you the God’s honest truth: she ain’t got none! A fool . . . She’s quiet, quiet, like a murder victim quiet . . . She sits, nice and quiet, then suddenly out of the blue — up she jumps! Just like you’d scalded her with boiling water. Springs off her chair, like she was scorched, and then the yammering begins . . . She yammers and yammers . . . With no end in sight she yammers . . . Those parents of hers are fools, and the food’s no good, and don’t talk to her like that. And they’ve found nobody she can live with and it’s like they was tormenting the life out of her . . . “You,” she says, “can’t understand me . . . “ The gal’s a fool! The merchant Kashalotov5 made a match with her—and she turned him down! Laughed in his face, that’s what . . . A rich merchant, handsome, aligant, like a cute young officer laddy. Or else, sometimes, she’ll take up some stupid little book, go in the pantry and start reading . . .
CAPTAIN. No, that fool doesn’t suit my specifications . . . Find another one (gets up and looks at his watch). For now bon sure.6 Time for me to go . . . I’ll go my bachelor’s way . . .
LUKINISHNA. Go, dearie! Happy hunting! (Gets up.) On Saturday night I’ll drop in concerning a bride (goes to the door) . . . Well, now as to that . . . would you be needing a little female companionship along your bachelor’s way?
A. Chekhonte
NOTES
1 Published in Splinters (Oskolki) 38 (September 17, 1883), p. 5.
2 A double-punning name: Sous = Sauce, and So-usy = With a moustache.
3 Literally, the daughter of Luke, but with hints of lukavy, cunning, and luk, onion.
4 Joke name from kanitel, blather, hot air.
5 Joke name from kashalot, sperm whale.
6 Mispronunciation of bon jour, French for “good day.”
A YOUNG MAN1
Moлo‰oй чeлo‚eк
At a table, covered with impressive inkblots, sits PRAVDOLYUBOV. Before him stands UPRYAMOV,2 a young man with a facetious expression on his face.
PRAVDOLYUBOV (with tears in his eyes). Young man! I have children of my own . . . I have a heart . . . I understand . . . which is why this pains me so. I assure you, as a man of honor, that denying this will only do you harm. Tell me frankly, where were you going just now?
UPRYAMOV. To . . . to the editorial offices of a humor magazine.
PRAVDOLYUBOV. Hm . . . You’re a humorist, I suppose? (Shakes his head reproachfully.) You should be ashamed! So young and yet so depraved . . . What’s that you’re holding?
UPRYAMOV. Manuscripts.
PRAVDOLYUBOV. Hand them over! (Takes them and looks them over.) Now, sir . . . let’s have a look . . . What’s this one?
UPRYAMOV. Subjects for editorial cartoons.
PRAVDOLYUBOV (is bursting with indignation, but, quickly mastering his feelings, calms down and becomes impartial, process-server-style). What’s this drawing?
UPRYAMOV. You see, it’s the drawing of a man. He is standing with one foot in Russia and the other in Austria. He is doing magic tricks. “Gentlemen,” he is saying. “A ruble moves from my right pocket to my left and turns into 65 kopeks!” As a companion-piece to this drawing there’s another. You see, here’s the credit ruble with little hands and feet. He keeps falling down over and over, and there’s a German running after him and clipping him with a scissors . . . Did you get it? This one’s a tavern . . . This is our press, and this press . . . And here are settlers in a birch forest; there are children too, begging for gruel . . . A special kind of gruel, as you must be aware . . . Here’s a drawing of a lackey . . .
PRAVOLYUBOV. And who is this in the mousetrap?
UPRAYMOV. That’s Privy Counselor Rossitsky; the trap is baited with government-issue pork . . .