agreeable occupation these dances are! Just think how
fine! What can be more entrancing? You enter an assembly, or
some one's wedding, you sit down; naturally, you are all decked
with flowers, you are dressed up like a doll, or like a picture
in a paper; suddenly a cavalier flies up, 'Will you grant me
the happiness, madam?' Well, you see if he is a man with
understanding, or an army officer, you half-close your eyes,
and reply, 'With pleasure!' Ah! Cha-a-arming! It is simply
beyond comprehension! I no longer like to dance with students
or shop-clerks. 'Tis quite another thing to distinguish
yourself with military men! Ah, how delightful! How enchanting!
And their mustaches, and their epaulets, and their uniforms,
and some even have spurs with bells.... I am amazed that so
many women should sit with their feet tucked up under them.
Really, it is not at all difficult to learn. Here am I, who was
ashamed to take a teacher. I have learned everything,
positively everything, in twenty lessons. Why should not one
learn to dance? It is pure superstition! Here is mama, who used
to get angry because the teacher was always clutching at my
knees. That was because she is not cultured. Of what importance
is it? He's only the dancing-master."

Lipotchka proceeds to picture to herself that she receives a
proposal from an officer, and that he thinks she is uneducated
because she gets confused. She has not danced for a year and a
half, and decides to practice a little. As she is dancing, her
mother enters, and bids her to stop--dancing is a sin.
Lipotchka refuses, and an acrimonious wrangle ensues between
mother and daughter, about things in general. The mother
reproaches Lipotchka for her ways, reminds her that her parents
have educated her, and so forth. To this Lipotchka retorts that
other people have taught her all she knows--and why have her
parents refused that gentleman of good birth who has asked for
her hand? Is he not a Cupid? (she pronounces it "Capid.") There
is no living with them, and so forth. The female match-maker
comes to inform them how she is progressing in her search for a
proper match for Lipotchka, and the latter declares stoutly,
that she will never marry a merchant. The match-maker, a famous
figure in old Russia life, and irresi