. But, my dear, it's impossible! I'd be tickled to death,
but I've given my word.

PODKHALYUZIN. Just as you please, ma'am! But if you betroth her to the
other fellow, you'll bring such bad luck upon yourself, that you'll not get
clear afterwards!

USTINYA NAUMOVNA. But just consider yourself, how'll I have the nerve to
show my face before Samson Silych? I gave it to him hot and heavy: that the
fellow is rich, and handsome, and so much in love that he is half dead; and
now what'll I say? You know yourself what a fellow Samson Silych is; you
see he'll pull my cap over my ears before you know it.

PODKHALYUZIN. Pull your cap nothing, ma'am!

USTINYA NAUMOVNA. And I've got the girl all worked up. Twice a day she
sends to me and asks: "What's the matter with my suitor?" and, "What's he
like?"

PODKHALYUZIN. But don't you run away from your own good fortune, Ustinya
Naumovna. Do you want two thousand rubles and a sable cloak for merely
arranging this wedding, ma'am? But let our understanding about the match be
private. I tell you, ma'am, that this suitor's such a sort as you've never
seen; there's only one thing, ma'am: he's not of aristocratic origin.

USTINYA NAUMOVNA. But is she an aristocrat? Pity if she is, my jewel!
That's the way things go these days: every peasant girl is trying to
worm her way into the nobility.--Now, although this here Olimpiada
Samsonovna--of course, God give her good health--gives presents like a
princess, yet, believe me, her origin's no better than ours. Her father,
Samson Silych, dealt in leather mittens on the Balchug; respectable people
called him Sammy, and fed him with thumps behind the ears. And her mother,
Agrafena Kondratyevna, was little more than a peasant girl, and he got her
from Preobrazhenskoye. They got together some capital, climbed into the
merchant class--so the daughter has her eye peeled for the title of
princess. And all that through money. How much worse am I than she? Yet I
have to trot at her heels. God knows what kind of bringing-up she's had:
she walks like an elephant crawls on his belly; whether French or piano,
it's a bit here and a bit there, and there's nothing to it; and when she
starts to dance--I have to stuff a handkerchief in my mouth.

PODKHALYUZIN. But, look here--it'd be more proper for her to marry a
merchant.

USTINYA NAUMOVNA. But how'll I stand with the first suitor, my jewel? I've
already assured him that Olimpiada Samsonovna is such a beauty,