Page:Anton Chekhov - The Boor - Tr. Hilmar Baukhage (1915).djvu/19

Rh one to speak to you? In French, perhaps! Madame, je vous prie! Pardon me for having disturbed you. What beautiful weather we are having to-day! And how this mourning becomes you! (He makes a low bow with mock ceremony)

Not at all funny! I think it vulgar!

(Imitating her) Not at all funny—vulgar! I don't understand how to behave in the company of ladies. Madam, in the course of my life I have seen more women than you have sparrows. Three times have I fought duels for women, twelve I jilted and nine jilted me. There was a time when I played the fool, used honeyed language, bowed and scraped. I loved, suffered, sighed to the moon, melted in love's torments. I loved passionately, I loved to madness, loved in every key, chattered like a magpie on emancipation, sacrificed half my fortune in the tender passion, until now the devil knows I've had enough of it. Your obedient servant will let you lead him around by the nose no more. Enough! Black eyes, passionate eyes, coral lips, dimples in cheeks, moonlight whispers, soft, modest sighs,—for all that, madam, I wouldn't pay a kopeck! I am not speaking of present company, but of women in general; from the tiniest to the greatest, they are conceited hyprocriticalhypocritical [sic], chattering, odious, deceitful from top to toe; vain, petty, cruel with a maddening logic and (He strikes his forehead) in this respect, please excuse my frankness, but one sparrow is worth ten of the of aforementioned petticoat-philosophers. When one sees one of the romantic creatures before him he imagines he is looking at some holy being, so wonderful that its one breath could dissolve him in a sea of a thousand charms and delights; but if one looks into the soul—it's nothing but a common crocodile. (He seizes the arm-chair and breaks it in two) But the worst of all is that this crocodile imagines it is