laborer's wife so dressed up that a princess could hardly
be compared with her. She had on a lilac silk dress and a splendid shawl
on her head, fine, well-fitting gloves, and in her hand she held a satin
parasol. I stood staring, open-mouthed, as she passed. Moreover, she
trailed behind her a train three yards long. I tell you my heart was sad
when I saw how she swept the street with that beautiful dress and
dragged along all sorts of rubbish with it. I really do not see why they
still have street-sweepers. It was a long time before I could turn my
eyes from her, and thought to myself, Lord, one can't tell the high from
the low nowadays! And what can one say to the others if a laborer's wife
puts on so much style?

OSSEP. I said that very thing. I have just spoken of it. A new public
official has just arrived. She sees that others want to marry their
daughters to him, and she runs, head first, against the wall to get
ahead of them.

CHACHO. You are really peculiar. You have, you say, not enough money to
provide a dowry for your daughter, and yet you brought her up and
educated her in the fashion. For what has she learned to play the piano,
then? Consider everything carefully.

OSSEP. Devil take this education! Of what good is this education if it
ruins me? Is that sort of an education for the like of us? Ought we not
to live as our fathers lived and stay in our own sphere, so that we
could eat our bread with a good appetite? What kind of a life is that of
the present day? Where is the appetizing bread of earlier times?
Everything that one eats is smeared with gall! For what do I need a
_salon_ and a parlor, a cook and a footman? If a man stretches himself
too much in his coat the seams must burst!

CHACHO. If you don't want to have all those things can't you manage the
house another way? Who is to blame for it?

OSSEP. Have I managed it so? I wish he may break his neck who brought it
all to pass! I haven't done it; it came of itself, and how it happened I
don't know Oftentimes when I look back over my early days I see that
things were very different twenty years ago. It seems to me I have to
live like an ambassador! [_Stands up_.] We are all the same, yes, we all
go the same pace. Wherever you go you find the same conditions, and no
one questions whether his means permit it. If a man who has 10,000
rubles lives so, I say nothing; but if one with an income of 1,000
rubles imitates him, then my good-nature stops. Wha