Page:Plays by Anton Tchekoff (1916).djvu/148

140

. Papa, do say it briefly!

. When you are married we mean to give you fifteen thousand roubles. Please don’t let us have any discussion about it afterward. Wait, now! Be quiet! That is only the beginning. The best is yet to come. We have allotted you fifteen thousand roubles, but in consideration of the fact that Nicholas owes your mother nine thousand, that sum will have to be deducted from the amount we mean to give you. Very well. Now, beside that

. Why do you tell me all this?

. Your mother told me to.

. Leave me in peace! If you had any respect for yourself or me you could not permit yourself to speak to me in this way. I don’t want your money! I have not asked for it, and never shall.

. What are you attacking me for? The two rats in Gogol’s fable sniffed first and then ran away, but you attack without even sniffing.

. Leave me in peace, and do not offend my ears with your two-penny calculations.

. [Losing his temper] Bah! You all, every one of you, do all you can to make me cut my throat or kill somebody. One of you screeches and fusses all day and counts every penny, and the other is so clever and humane and emancipated that she cannot understand her own father! I offend your ears, do I? Don’t you realise that before I came here to offend your ears I was being torn to pieces over there, [He points to the door] literally drawn and quartered? So you cannot understand? You two have addled my brain till I am utterly at my wits’ end; indeed I am! [He goes toward the door, and stops] I don’t like this business at all; I don’t like any thing about you

. What is it, especially, that you don’t like?