midnight and make the streets dark, so that no
one sees that you have a torn veil on your head.

SALOME [_wiping away her tears_]. God only knows everything I have to
suffer from you!

OSSEP [_alone_]. Great heaven! how this world is arranged! When one
trouble comes to a man a second comes along, too, and waits at his door.
When I am just about ready to cope with the first, in comes the second
and caps the climax. I don't know which way to turn with all my debts;
and now this women's quarrel will be laid at my door.

SCENE VII

BARSSEGH [_coming in, angry_]. I will show him that I am a man!

OSSEP. Good-morning!

BARSSEGH. I want neither "good-morning" nor any other wish from you. You
have, I suppose, come to help your wife. Give me a blow, too, so the
measure will be full. This is surely the interest on the money you owe
me.

OSSEP. Calm yourself. What, indeed, do you want?

BARSSEGH. Do you, then, believe that I will overlook my wife's hair
being pulled out? That I will not pardon.

OSSEP. What is there to pardon? Your wife tore my wife's veil from her
head.

BARSSEGH. A veil is not hair.

OSSEP. For heaven's sake, stop! Is a women's spat our affair?

BARSSEGH. Say what you wish, but I will do what pleases me.

OSSEP. Calm yourself; calm yourself.

BARSSEGH. Yes, yes; I will calm you, too.

OSSEP. Believe me; it is unworthy of you.

BARSSEGH. She has torn her veil, he says. What is a veil, then? A thing
that one can buy, and at most costs two rubles.

OSSEP. The hair was also not her own. Why do you worry yourself about
it? For a two-ruble veil she tore a two-kopeck band. The band is there,
and she can fasten the hair on again.

BARSSEGH. No, you can't get out of it that way. I will not pardon her
for this insolence.

OSSEP [_aside_]. Great heaven!

BARSSEGH. You'll see! you'll see!

OSSEP. Do what you will! I did not come to you on that account. You sent
for me by Micho?

BARSSEGH. Yes, you are right. Have you brought me my money? Give it to
me, quick!

OSSEP. How you speak to me! Am I your servant, that you speak so
roughly? You surely do not know whom you have before you. Look out, for
if I go for you, you will sing another tune.

BARSSEGH. That has not happened to me yet! He owes me money, and even
here he makes himself important!

OSSEP. Do you think because I owe you money I shall stand your insults?
I speak politely to you, and I demand the same from you.

BARSSEGH.