Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/110

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broomstick? I have no horses of my own, and Nicholas won’t take me with him when he goes out. He says I must stay at home to amuse Sarah. Send your horses for me and I shall come with pleasure.

. [With a wave of the hand] Oh, that is easy to say! But Zuzu would rather have a fit than lend the horses to any one. My dear, dear old friend, you are more to me than any one I know! You and I are survivors of those good old days that are gone forever, and you alone bring back to my mind the love and longings of my lost youth. Of course I am only joking, and yet, do you know, I am almost in tears?

. Stop, stop! You smell like the air of a wine cellar.

. Dear friend, you cannot imagine how lonely I am without my old companions! I could hang myself! [Whispers] Zuzu has frightened all the decent men away with her stingy ways, and now we have only this riff-raff, as you see: Tom, Dick, and Harry. However, drink your tea.

. [Anxiously, to ] Don’t bring it in like that! Go fetch some jam to eat with it!

. [Laughing loudly, to ] Didn’t I tell you so? [To ] I bet him driving over, that as soon as we arrived Zuzu would want to feed us with jam!

. Still joking, Count!

. She made twenty jars of it this year, and how else do you expect her to get rid of it?

. [Sits down near the table] Are you still adding to the hoard, Zuzu? You will soon have a million, eh?

. [Sighing] I know it seems as if no one could be richer than we, but where do they think the money comes from? It is all gossip.

. Oh, yes, we all know that! We know how badly