The Poor Bride

Well, since I have arrived, I have arrived. What kind of question is this that is manifesting itself!

You are always running everywhere! You should have stuck to your merchant circles.

And you, no doubt, are always hanging around the nobility; that is why you have worn your skirts to rags, skulking about their front halls.

You ignorant woman! I do not even wish to speak with you.

Ha, ha, ha, ha... You think you are very polite! You associate with the nobility, but you go about plucked and bedraggled, a disgrace to look at; while I associate with the merchant class, and I live in my own house, no worse than anyone else, and I even have a lambart a pawn shop, from the French "lombard". You put on a little bonnet and act as if one cannot even touch you with a finger! But if I wanted to, I could give you a thrashing of half an arshin a Russian unit of measure, approx. 28 inches. (Laughs). I would be more important than you.

What is there to say to an ignorant person. You do not know how to behave; you are just a fool, completely uneducated.

A fool, you say—no one will step on your toes quite like I will. (Silence).

And just wait until Martyn Martyanich finds out why you go to them; he will knock the arrogance out of you.

And why do I go there? Well, tell me, why?

Well, it is well known why.

How can you not know! You are lying, you are lying! I have been a widow for thirteen years, and I am not involved in anything. You are clearly trying to shift the blame from a sick head to a healthy one.