VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. But how can I keep still, benefactress? Such lack of
feeling! Such ingratitude! It pierces the heart.

MADAM ULANBEKOV. I command you to keep still, and you must keep still!

GRISHA. Please let me, ma'am!

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. As if the mistress didn't love you, as if she didn't
fondle you, more, if anything, than her own son!

MADAM ULANBEKOV. [_Stamping her foot_] Shhh!.... I'll turn you out!

GRISHA. I want awfully to go to the fair; please let me, ma'am.

MADAM ULANBEKOV. Well, go along then! but come back early!

GRISHA. Yes, ma'am.

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. Kiss the dear lady's hand, you blockhead!

GRISHA. What are you trying to teach me for? I know my own business. [_He
kisses the mistress's hand and goes out._

MADAM ULANBEKOV. As for you, my dear, if I ever hear anything like this
again, I'll have them drive you off the place with brooms.

_She goes out._ VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA _remains standing in a stupor._

SCENE VI

_The same, except_ MADAM ULANBEKOV; _then_ LIZA

LEONID. Well, you caught it, didn't you? And you deserved it, too!

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. I'll have my turn yet.

LIZA _enters._

LIZA. [_Quietly to_ LEONID] Nadya sent me to say that we'll come to the
garden.

LEONID. Give her a kiss from me.

GAVRILOVNA. God give you health, master, for taking our part. Any wretch
can insult us; but there's no one to take our part. You'll get a rich
reward for that in the next world.

LEONID. I'm always ready to help you. [_He goes out to the right, with a
caper._

GAVRILOVNA. Thanks, my dear! [_She goes out with_ LIZA, _to the left_.

SCENE VII

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA _and_ POTAPYCH

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. Why don't you insult me? They all insult me, why
don't you? You heard how she herself wanted to flog me; "I'll have them do
it with brooms," she said. May her words choke her!

POTAPYCH. What, I!.... I insult anybody! But as to the gentlefolk
there ... I don't know, but perhaps they have to.

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. Do you see what's going on in this house! Do you
see? Do you understand it, or don't you? Just now when I began to talk
about Grisha, you heard how she began to roar? You heard how she began to
hiss?

POTAPYCH. What's that to me? I, by the mistress's kindness, in her
employ....I shall carry out all her orders.... What business is it of mine?
I don't want to know anything that isn't my business.

VASILISA PEREGRINOVNA. But did y