mother gave the Meadows for the temporary
and free use of your grandfather's peasants. The peasants used the land
for forty years and got as accustomed to it as if it was their own, when
it happened that...

CHUBUKOV. Excuse me, my precious.... You forget just this, that the
peasants didn't pay your grandmother and all that, because the Meadows
were in dispute, and so on. And now everybody knows that they're ours.
It means that you haven't seen the plan.

LOMOV. I'll prove to you that they're mine!

CHUBUKOV. You won't prove it, my darling.

LOMOV. I shall!

CHUBUKOV. Dear one, why yell like that? You won't prove anything just
by yelling. I don't want anything of yours, and don't intend to give up
what I have. Why should I? And you know, my beloved, that if you propose
to go on arguing about it, I'd much sooner give up the meadows to the
peasants than to you. There!

LOMOV. I don't understand! How have you the right to give away somebody
else's property?

CHUBUKOV. You may take it that I know whether I have the right or not.
Because, young man, I'm not used to being spoken to in that tone of
voice, and so on: I, young man, am twice your age, and ask you to speak
to me without agitating yourself, and all that.

LOMOV. No, you just think I'm a fool and want to have me on! You call
my land yours, and then you want me to talk to you calmly and politely!
Good neighbours don't behave like that, Stepan Stepanitch! You're not a
neighbour, you're a grabber!

CHUBUKOV. What's that? What did you say?

NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Papa, send the mowers out to the Meadows at once!

CHUBUKOV. What did you say, sir?

NATALYA STEPANOVNA. Oxen Meadows are ours, and I shan't give them up,
shan't give them up, shan't give them up!

LOMOV. We'll see! I'll have the matter taken to court, and then I'll
show you!

CHUBUKOV. To court? You can take it to court, and all that! You can! I
know you; you're just on the look-out for a chance to go to court, and
all that.... You pettifogger! All your people were like that! All of
them!

LOMOV. Never mind about my people! The Lomovs have all been honourable
people, and not one has ever been tried for embezzlement, like your
grandfather!

CHUBUKOV. You Lomovs have had lunacy in your family, all of you!

NATALYA STEPANOVNA. All, all, all!

CHUBUKOV. Your grandfather was a drunkard, and your younger aunt,
Nastasya Mihailovna, ran away with an architect, and so on.

LOMOV. And your mother