Although "Shoemaker, Stick to Your Last," the central idea of which is that girls of the merchant class will be much happier if they marry in their own class than if they wed nobles, who take them solely for their money (the usual reason for such alliances, even at the present day), had an immense success, both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, Ostrovsky received not a penny from it. In the latter city, also, the censor took a hand, because "the nobility was put to shame for the benefit of the merchant class," and the theater management was greatly agitated when the Emperor and all the imperial family came to the first performance. But the Emperor remarked, "There are very few plays which have given me so much pleasure; it is not a play, it is a lesson." "The Poor Bride" (written in 1852) was then put on the stage, and the author received a small payment on the spot. In 1854 "Poverty is not a Vice" appeared, and confirmed the author's standing as a writer of the first class. This play, a great favorite still, contains many presentations of old Russian customs. It was the first from which the author received a regular royalty, ranging from one-twentieth to two-thirds of the profits. After many more comedies, all more or less noted, all more or less objected to by the censor, for various reasons, and hostility and bad treatment on the part of the theatrical authorities, Ostrovsky attained the zenith of his literary fame with his masterpiece, "Groza" ("The Thunderstorm"). It was not until 1856, in his comedy "A Drunken Headache from Another Man's Banquet" (meaning, "to bear another's trouble"), that Ostrovsky invented the words which have passed into the language, _samodur_ and _samodurstvo_ (which mean, literally, "self-fool" and "the state of being a self-fool"). The original "self-fool" is "Tit Tititch Bruskoff" (provincially pronounced "Kit Kititch" in the play), but no better example of the pig-headed, obstinate, self-complacent, vociferous, intolerable tyrant which constitutes the "self-fool" can be desired than that offered in "The Thunderstorm" by Marfa Ignatievna Kabanoff, the rich merchant's widow. She rules her son, Tikhon, and his wife, Katerina, with a rod of iron. Her daughter, Varvara, gets along with her by consistent deceitfulness, and meets her lover, Kudryash, whenever she pleases. Tikhon goes off for a short time on business, and anxious to enjoy a little freedom, he persistently refuses to take his wife with him, despite her urgent entreaties. She makes the request because she feels that she is falling in love with Boris.