new tale is this? Still
crying! Let's have no more tears! [NADYA _weeps_] I'm talking to you.
[_Rising slightly_] Your tears mean absolutely nothing to me! When I make
up my mind to do a thing, I take a firm stand, and listen to no one on
earth! [_She sits down_] And know, first of all, that your obstinacy will
lead to nothing; you will simply anger me.

NADYA. [_Weeping_] I'm an orphan, mistress! Your will must be obeyed!

MADAM ULANBEKOV. Well, I should say! Of course it must; because I brought
you up; that's equal to giving you life itself.

LEONID _enters._

SCENE III

_The same and_ LEONID

LEONID. How are you, mamma?

MADAM ULANBEKOV. How are you, my dear? Where have you been?

LEONID. I went hunting with Potapych. I killed two ducks, mamma.

MADAM ULANBEKOV. You don't spare your mother; the idea, going hunting in
your state of health! You'll fall sick again, God forbid! and then you'll
simply kill me! Ah, my God, how I have suffered with that child! [_She
muses._

GAVRILOVNA. Some tea, master?

LEONID. No, thanks.

MADAM ULANBEKOV. [_To_ VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA] When he was born, I was ill
a very long time. Then he was always sickly, and he grew up puny. How many
tears have I shed over him! Sometimes I would just look at him, and my
tears would flow; no, it will never be my lot to see him in the uniform of
the guardsmen! But it was most distressing of all for me when his father,
owing to the boy's poor health, was unable to send him to a military
school. How much it cost me to renounce the thought that he might become a
soldier! For half a year I was ill. Just imagine to yourself, my dear, when
he finishes his course, they will give him some rank or other, such as they
give to any priest's son clerking in a government office! Isn't it
awful? In the military service, especially in the cavalry, all ranks are
aristocratic; one knows at once that even a junker is from the nobility.
But what is a provincial secretary, or a titular councillor! Any one can
be a titular councillor--even a merchant, a church-school graduate, a
low-class townsman, if you please. You have only to study, then serve
awhile. Why, one of the petty townsmen who is apt at learning will get a
rank higher than his! That's the way of the world! That's the way of the
world! Oh, dear! [_She turns away with a wave of her hand_] I don't like to
pass judgment on anything that is instituted by higher authority, and won't
permit others t