Читать книгу Plays - Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky - Страница 17

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The same, NEGLIGÉNTOV and POTÁPYCH

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Oh, oh, how disgusting! Don't come near me!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. I'm sent from uncle to thank you for your bounty.

LEONÍD. He says, mamma, that they taught him a good deal, only it was impossible for him to learn anything.

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Impossible; from my birth I had no aptitude for the sciences. I received from fifty to a hundred birch rods nearly every day, but they didn't quicken my understanding.

LEONÍD. Oh, mamma, how amusingly he tells about the way he learned! Here, just listen. Well, and how did you learn Latin?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Turpissime!

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. [Shrugging her shoulders] What in the world is that?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Most abominably.

LEONÍD. No, wait a bit; and what did the teacher do with you?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. [Bursts out laughing] It made you laugh. Once, after a cruel torture, he commanded two students to fasten me by the neck with a belt, and to lead me through the market-place as a laughing-stock.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How is it they took you into the civil service if you never learned anything?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Through the mediation of influential people.

LEONÍD. And did they expel you from school?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. They didn't expel me; but they excluded me because I grew too much.

LEONÍD. Grew too much?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Well, as I, during all this teaching and grilling, remaining in the lower grades, was getting on in years, and grew more than the other fellows of my class, of course I was excluded because I was too big. I suffered all the more from the venality of those at the head. Our rector liked gifts; and a week before the examinations, he sent us all to our parents for presents. According to the number of these presents, we were promoted to the higher classes.

LEONÍD. What was your conduct like?

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Reprehensible.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What in the world! Good heavens! Go away, my dear sir, go away!

LEONÍD. Oh, mamma, he's comical; wait a bit before driving him out. Dance,

NEGLIGÉNTOV!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. [Dances and sings]

"I shall go, shall go to mow

Upon the meadow green."

GRÍSHA bursts out laughing.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Stop, stop! [NEGLIGÉNTOV ceases. To GRÍSHA] What are you laughing at?

GRÍSHA. The member dances very comically.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What do you mean, "member"?

GRÍSHA. Why, he himself tells us all that he is a member in the court, not a copy-clerk. And so they call him the member.

NEGLIGÉNTOV. I call myself the member, although falsely, but expressly for the respect of the court menials, and in order to escape scoffing and insult.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Be gone, and don't you ever dare to show yourself to me!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. Uncle says that I fell into loose living because of my bachelor life, and that I may get mired in it unless you show me your favor.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. No, no, never!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. [On his knees] Uncle told me to beg you with tears, because I am a lost man, subject to many vices, and, without your favor, I shall not be tolerated in the civil service.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Tell your uncle that I shall always be your benefactress; but don't you even think about a wife! Be gone, be gone!

NEGLIGÉNTOV. I thank you for not deserting me! [To GRÍSHA] Ask the mistress to let you go to the fair, and catch up with me! [He goes out.