old Bolshoff has been put in
prison by his enraged creditors, while the young couple have
been fitting up a new house in gorgeous style on the old
merchant's money. The pettifogging lawyer comes for his
promised reward. Podkhaliuzin cheats him out of it. The
match-maker comes for her two thousand rubles and sable-lined
cloak and gets one hundred rubles and a cheap gown. As these
people depart cursing, old Bolshoff is brought in by his guard.
He has come to entreat his wealthy son-in-law to pay the
creditors twenty-five per cent and so release him from prison.
Podkhaliuzin declares that this is impossible; the old man has
given him his instructions to pay only ten per cent, and
really, he cannot afford to pay more. The old man's darling
Lipotchka joins in and supports her husband's plea that they
positively cannot afford more. The old man is taken back to
prison, preliminary to being sent to Siberia as a fraudulent
bankrupt. The young couple take the matter quite coolly until
the policeman comes to carry off Podkhaliuzin to prison, for
collusion. Even then the rascally ex-clerk does not lose his
coolness, and when informed by the policeman--in answer to his
question as to what is to become of him--that he will probably
be sent to Siberia, "Well, if it is to be Siberia, Siberia let
it be! What of that! People live in Siberia also. Evidently
there is no escape. I am ready."

Although "Shoemaker, Stick to Your Last," the central idea of which is
that girls of the merchant class will be much happier if they marry in
their own class than if they wed nobles, who take them solely for their
money (the usual reason for such alliances, even at the present day),
had an immense success, both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, Ostrovsky
received not a penny from it. In the latter city, also, the censor took
a hand, because "the nobility was put to shame for the benefit of the
merchant class," and the theater management was greatly agitated when
the Emperor and all the imperial family came to the first performance.
But the Emperor remarked, "There are very few plays which have given me
so much pleasure; it is not a play, it is a lesson."

"The Poor Bride" (written in 1852) was then put on the stage, and the
author received a small payment on the spot. In 1854 "Poverty is not a
Vice" appeared, and confirmed the author's st