thing of all is that this crocodile for some
reason or other imagines that its chef d'oeuvre, its privilege and
monopoly, is its tender feelings. Why, confound it, hang me on that nail
feet upwards, if you like, but have you met a woman who can love anybody
except a lapdog? When she's in love, can she do anything but snivel and
slobber? While a man is suffering and making sacrifices all her love
expresses itself in her playing about with her scarf, and trying to hook
him more firmly by the nose. You have the misfortune to be a woman, you
know from yourself what is the nature of woman. Tell me truthfully,
have you ever seen a woman who was sincere, faithful, and constant? You
haven't! Only freaks and old women are faithful and constant! You'll
meet a cat with a horn or a white woodcock sooner than a constant woman!

POPOVA. Then, according to you, who is faithful and constant in love? Is
it the man?

SMIRNOV. Yes, the man!

POPOVA. The man! [Laughs bitterly] Men are faithful and constant in
love! What an idea! [With heat] What right have you to talk like that?
Men are faithful and constant! Since we are talking about it, I'll
tell you that of all the men I knew and know, the best was my late
husband.... I loved him passionately with all my being, as only a young
and imaginative woman can love, I gave him my youth, my happiness, my
life, my fortune, I breathed in him, I worshipped him as if I were a
heathen, and... and what then? This best of men shamelessly deceived me
at every step! After his death I found in his desk a whole drawerful
of love-letters, and when he was alive--it's an awful thing to
remember!--he used to leave me alone for weeks at a time, and make love
to other women and betray me before my very eyes; he wasted my money,
and made fun of my feelings.... And, in spite of all that, I loved him
and was true to him. And not only that, but, now that he is dead, I
am still true and constant to his memory. I have shut myself for ever
within these four walls, and will wear these weeds to the very end....

SMIRNOV. [Laughs contemptuously] Weeds!... I don't understand what you
take me for. As if I don't know why you wear that black domino and bury
yourself between four walls! I should say I did! It's so mysterious, so
poetic! When some junker [Note: So in the original.] or some tame poet
goes past your windows he'll think: "There lives the mysterious Tamara
who, for the love of her husband, buried herself betwe