The Poor Bride

MARYA ANDREYEVNA.

What are you looking for there?

DARYA.

The mistress lost her snuffbox... I found it.

MARYA ANDREYEVNA.

Tell me, Dasha, am I pretty?

DARYA.

You? You are a beauty of beauties.

MARYA ANDREYEVNA.

Let us swap places, and then they won’t laugh at you.

DARYA.

Oh, mother, what use is beauty to me.

MARYA ANDREYEVNA.

And what use is it to me?

DARYA.

What are you saying, miss! Just look, some fine young man will fall in love with you, it will be a joy to behold; perhaps some colonel will take you.

MARYA ANDREYEVNA.

As if I could fall in love, Dasha! Mother says it is time to get married.

DARYA.

Well, and why not get married?

MARYA ANDREYEVNA.

Then why be a beauty, it is better to be a good housewife.

DARYA.

How can that be, it is better for the husband to love you. Look at our neighbor, she has two daughters: the older one is as thin as a matchstick, but the younger one is rosy and plump, she is not even sixteen yet, but it is as if she has already nursed three children. So the mother says: I am afraid, she says, to give the older one in marriage, the husband won’t love her; this one, she says, he will love. I have gotten distracted talking with you, miss; the old woman will likely get angry. (She leaves).